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What the jury decided
The jury found that Bexar County’s practice violated Schott’s Fourth Amendment rights. According to the Institute for Justice (IJ), the nonprofit law firm that represented Schott, the verdict rests on a county policy or custom rather than on a single deputy’s mistake. Federal civil-rights law allows a local government to be held liable in that way, but the plaintiff must show that an official policy or custom caused the constitutional violation, which goes beyond proving one bad stop. IJ says the jury agreed that this standard was met.
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This is a jury verdict in a trial court. It is not an appellate ruling, and it does not automatically bind law enforcement agencies in other Texas counties or other states.
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IJ said it would ask the court to order Bexar County to stop using baseless stops as a tool for warrantless searches. Reporting available as of October 9, 2026 does not show whether the court has granted or denied that request. Until a ruling appears, treat the injunction as pending, not as a court order.
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How the stop began
IJ says Schott drove from near Houston to a well pad outside Carrizo Springs on March 15, 2022, for his family’s oilfield-equipment business. He stayed overnight and drove back the next day. Ars Technica describes the trip as a one-day turnaround, so both accounts agree it was a short, routine business trip.
The tip reached Bexar County Sheriff’s deputy Joel Babb through a WhatsApp group. The sender was someone Babb knew as “Kiki,” whom Babb believed worked at a federal fusion center in Laredo. According to IJ, the tip relied on camera records of Schott’s license plate and travel. Those records came from automated license plate reader (ALPR) cameras, which capture plates and vehicles as they pass and can show where a vehicle has been.
The stop, the questioning and the search
Babb stopped Schott on Interstate 35 and said Schott had drifted across the fog line. IJ says trial evidence showed Schott never crossed the lines. Ars Technica reports that Babb later admitted the stated reason for the stop was bogus.
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IJ says Schott was held on the shoulder for 76 minutes and questioned in a patrol car. His truck was then searched after a drug dog alerted. IJ says the handler signaled the dog moments before its alert, and officers found nothing in the truck. Ars Technica also reports the 76-minute detention and the empty search.
IJ’s account of the wider practice
Beyond Schott’s stop, IJ describes a five-step practice that it says the trial evidence showed. This is IJ’s characterization of how the county operated, not an independently audited count of every stop made under the program.
- Cameras record plates and locations. ALPR cameras log vehicles as they travel.
- Analysts or anonymous tipsters flag ordinary travel. Routine trips are marked as suspicious.
- Deputies allegedly invent traffic violations. The stated reason for a stop is not an actual driving offense.
- Drivers are questioned and asked to consent to a search. The stop becomes an opportunity to search the vehicle.
- If consent is refused, a manipulated K-9 alert supplies probable cause. IJ says the dog’s alert was prompted by the handler’s signal and that a search can then proceed.
What the county’s ALPR policy says
Bexar County publishes a Flock Safety page describing its ALPR system. The page states that the system detects license plates and vehicles and does not detect people, gender, or race. The table below sets out the policy elements that matter to this case and what each one does and does not show.
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| Policy element | What the county’s page says | What it does not establish |
|---|---|---|
| Scope of detection | Detects license plates and vehicles, not people, gender, or race | Does not show whether flagged travel was lawful to stop |
| Data retention | Retained for 30 days (a county policy value, not a general ALPR standard) | Does not describe retention practices of other agencies |
| Access | Limited to authorized law-enforcement personnel in connection with a criminal investigation or nexus | Does not show whether access was limited in practice in Schott’s case |
| Hotlist verification | Plates must be verified by law enforcement in TCIC before action on a hotlist hit | Does not show whether that verification step occurred before Schott was stopped |
These are the county’s published rules and description of the system. They are not evidence that every stop followed them. The page is live and may change, so check it before quoting current policies or system figures.
What the verdict does not settle
This article relies on IJ’s announcement of September 28, 2026 and Ars Technica’s reporting of October 8, 2026. The complaint linked from Ars Technica’s coverage could not be retrieved for this report, and no verdict form or trial transcript was independently reviewed. The detailed trial evidence and the description of a countywide practice therefore come from IJ and should be read as its account.
No study figures are available on ALPR accuracy, error rates, or the number of drivers affected. IJ’s descriptions of the scale of the practice, such as “countless motorists” and “thousands of drivers,” are advocacy language, not measured counts.
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What the parties and critics say
Schott described why he went to court in IJ’s announcement: “After the stop, I filed a complaint with the Sheriff’s Office because I knew what happened to me was wrong. The department reviewed it, told me they didn’t see any violation, and said if I had a problem with it, I should sue them. So I did.”
IJ attorney Josh Windham put the case in broader terms in the same announcement: “This is what mass surveillance looks like when it reaches the shoulder of the highway.”
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Random freezes, missing sound and display glitches usually trace back to one bad driver. Find and replace yours safely.Free scan · under a minuteJake Laperruque, deputy director of the Security and Surveillance Project at the Center for Democracy and Technology, offered a wider view in an email to Ars Technica: “The truth is that ALPRs create serious dangers for Americans’ civil liberties, and if there aren’t sensible guardrails and checks on how these powerful tools are used, they also create serious risks to public safety with drivers being improperly pulled over or stalked by officers abusing the tech.” His remarks are a policy assessment, not a court finding.
The verdict addresses one county and one set of facts. Its wider significance will depend on whether the injunction is granted and on what the county does with its ALPR and stop practices next.
Sources: Institute for Justice, “Federal Jury Strikes Down Texas Sheriff’s Surveillance-Driven Traffic Stop Program,” September 28, 2026; Ars Technica, Cyrus Farivar, “Driver wins $76 after ALPR led to bogus traffic stop, drug searches,” October 8, 2026; Bexar County, “Flock Safety” policy page.
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