Anti-Flock candidate's footage released to the public
Port St. Lucie's mayoral runoff on Tuesday pits incumbent Shannon Martin, who voted to build the city's plate-reader network, against Steven Giordano, who has vowed to tear it out — and who says the Police Department already aimed its surveillance at him, releasing video of a campaign-sign removal the homeowner says was done with her permission. The mayor's husband, a police internal-affairs lieutenant, is one of three officers on paid leave while FDLE investigates.
- The race: runoff Nov. 3, nonpartisan. Giordano pledges to remove all ALPRs and not renew the Flock contract (expires Nov. 2028); Martin authorized and expanded the network and declined TCPalm's interview request.
- Aug. 5: surveillance video shows a Giordano volunteer removing a Martin sign; homeowner Gwynne Guzzetta says she gave permission and told police so. The incident remains under investigation. Aug. 7: Giordano reported the mayor's husband moving his signs and gave police his iPhone video of their 12:30 a.m. confrontation. The department released both videos in one news release. Giordano calls it retaliation — 'They used the Flock camera against me.' Precision: TCPalm reports it's unclear whether the surveillance camera was Flock's or another vendor's (the city also runs 73 Axon cameras).
- The fallout: Lt. Aaron Martin (internal affairs; the mayor's husband) and two other officers have been on paid leave since Aug. 11; Chief Niemczyk sent the case to FDLE to keep it 'fair, impartial, and unbiased'; the criminal investigation is still open, internal review to follow. The department refused to comment on Giordano's claims.
- The network behind it: 8 Flock cameras in 2022 → 53 at peak (126 devices with Axon); contract $22,000 → $470,406, approved on consent agendas with no bids and no public discussion. The chief cut retention to 30 days in July and restricted use to exigent circumstances in September; two council members who voted yes now want a pause. A federal Fourth Amendment suit against the city, the mayor, and Flock is pending (response due Nov. 9).
- Latest twist: Giordano filmed Lt. Martin campaigning for his wife outside an early-voting site; the department says he's on accrued vacation those weeks — not on duty, and not cleared either.
Most mayor's races are about roads and taxes. Port St. Lucie's is about the cameras — and about whether the Police Department put them, and its own news-release machinery, into the election. On Tuesday the city picks between incumbent Mayor Shannon Martin, who voted to authorize and expand the license plate reader network, and challenger Steven Giordano, who has vowed to remove every reader and let the Flock contract die when it expires in November 2028. Martin declined to be interviewed for TCPalm's account of the race. Giordano's opposition isn't abstract. He says the system was used on him.
On August 5, a police sergeant came across Giordano and a woman near campaign signs in a residential neighborhood, where one sign was on the ground and another had been placed. Police surveillance video appears to show the pair arrive and the woman — a Giordano volunteer — remove a Martin sign and set a different one in the yard. What the video can't show is permission: homeowner Gwynne Guzzetta told TCPalm she gave the volunteer permission to take her sign down, and that she told police the same. The incident is still under investigation. Two nights later the fight escalated: Giordano reported that his own signs were being moved, and turned over an iPhone video of a 12:30 a.m. verbal confrontation with the man he accused — Lt. Aaron Martin of the Port St. Lucie Police Department, an internal affairs investigator, and the mayor's husband.
The department then issued a news release that included both videos: the surveillance footage of the challenger, and the challenger's footage of the mayor's husband. Giordano calls the release retaliation — a tit-for-tat smear meant to 'spread false narratives' in a nonpartisan race. 'They used the Flock camera against me,' he told TCPalm. One honest caveat belongs inside the accusation: the released surveillance video has the fixed, elevated look of the city's camera network, but TCPalm reports it is unclear whether that camera belonged to Flock or to Axon, the city's other vendor. The department, asked about Giordano's claims, refused to comment — as did Chief Leon Niemczyk.
The official fallout is real regardless of who aimed what. Lt. Martin and two other officers — another internal-affairs lieutenant and a special-investigations sergeant — have been on paid administrative leave since August 11. Niemczyk asked the Florida Department of Law Enforcement to take the investigation specifically 'to ensure the investigation remained fair, impartial, and unbiased,' an acknowledgment in plain English that his department could not be seen investigating its own lieutenant in the mayor's race. As of mid-October, FDLE's criminal investigation was still open, with an internal investigation to follow it. The story didn't stay in August, either: Giordano later filmed Martin campaigning for his wife outside an early-voting site and fed the video to a Facebook page; the department responded that Martin is using accrued personal and vacation leave — present at the polls as a husband, not cleared as an officer.
Behind the race sits the network itself, and how it got built. City records show the Flock system grew from 8 cameras in 2022 to 53 at its peak — 126 devices counting the Axon cameras — while the contract climbed from $22,000 to $470,406. The City Council never sought bids and approved each expansion on the consent agenda, the part of the meeting reserved for items considered too routine to discuss. There is a straight line from that process to this fall: in July, Niemczyk cut data retention from a year to Flock's standard 30 days; in September, he restricted the system to exigent circumstances — life-threatening situations. Two council members who voted for the expansion now say the city should pause until it has a real policy. Residents are circulating a removal petition, and a local physician's federal lawsuit against the city, the mayor, and Flock — arguing the network violates the Fourth Amendment — gets the city's answer on November 9.
Yesterday this page wrote about Pinellas County, where the plate readers' problem was a deputy whose 300 searches no audit caught. Port St. Lucie is the same argument at a different joint: not whether the database gets abused in secret, but whether a surveillance system built without public debate can stay out of the public's politics. A camera network approved without discussion produced a mayor's race now being fought over footage — some of it shot by police cameras, some by the challenger — with state investigators as the referees. However Tuesday goes, the winner inherits the network, the lawsuit, and the question the consent agenda never asked: who watches, under what rules, and who decides.