Indiana State Police will investigate whether there were potential criminal violations by a Chesterton police officer, who recently resigned after being confronted about his practices accessing data from the Flock Safety license plate readers.
Chesterton Police Chief Tim Richardson, in a release Wednesday, stated that Cpl. Christopher Schoof resigned from the department on Aug. 27, rather than be placed on unpaid suspension.
Richardson said that he received information from an out-of-state newspaper, which questioned data they reviewed on a website regarding Flock inquiries that Schoof allegedly made in 2024 and 2025. He was then a detective for Chesterton, but was reassigned to work patrol in January 2026.
When asked if the case involved Schoof making an excessive number of inquiries regarding a few license plate numbers, Richardson replied by email that the information is part of the Indiana State Police inquiry. He said he cannot comment further on the case’s specifics.
Sgt. Glen Fifield, public information officer for the Indiana State Police Lowell Post, said he cannot comment on the investigation or give a timeline on how long it will take.
Chesterton contracts with Flock Safety, a company with a nationwide network of automated cameras that record passing traffic and license numbers. Thousands of law enforcement agencies access and share Flock’s data, and Chesterton police use the information in their criminal investigations.
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Richardson said after he received the information about Schoof on Aug. 25, he and his administrative team reviewed the information and called in Schoof for an interview.
Two days later, Richardson told Schoof that he was being placed on unpaid suspension, pending a termination hearing before the town’s Police Commission.
Schoof, who has been with the department for six years, decided to resign.
After Schoof resigned, the department continued its internal review and on Tuesday, Richardson said he submitted the findings to Porter County Prosecutor Gary Germann to determine if there were any potential violations of Indiana laws.
Germann asked Richardson to request an outside agency to do the criminal review.
The Indiana State Police’s Criminal Investigative Division accepted the case on Wednesday, hours before Richardson made the announcement.
Richardson said how he handled his case involving an officer wasn’t influenced by how Porter County Sheriff Jeff Balon last week disciplined a deputy, who was reduced a rank after it was discovered that he had made an unauthorized use of Flock camera data on three occasions.
Germann, who initially didn’t find any criminal violation, in reaction to criticism, decided Wednesday to appoint a special prosecutor to re-examine the case.
During Richardson’s tenure as Chesterton’s police chief, he advocated using the Flock camera system as a tool. He said the town’s officers assigned to the drug interdiction team, in particular, rely on Flock data.
“It has been a powerful and effective tool in eradicating illegal drug trafficking, which has led to significantly less overdose deaths in Chesterton over the past 18 months,” Richardson said.
On Sunday, Chesterton Police Cpl. Darren Conley relied heavily on the Flock camera system to track and arrest a 54-year-old man wanted in an Elgin, Illinois, homicide investigation.
Conley was alerted that the man was westbound in his Ford-150 pickup on Interstate 94 at the Michigan state line, just before 7 p.m. Sunday.
Several Chesterton Police officers coordinated with Porter Police and Indiana State Police, and the man surrendered peacefully when he was pulled over at milepost 27 marker. The man was arrested and will be extradited to Illinois.
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“This is exactly the type of situation where information sharing and technology can make an immediate difference,” Richardson said. “A homicide suspect traveled across multiple jurisdictions and state lines, and our officers were able to use information provided by another agency, along with technology, to locate and apprehend a homicide suspect as he traveled through our community.”
Another case where the Flock technology was important involved the quick capture of a suspect in the armed robbery of Russ & Barb’s Antiques in Chesterton on Oct. 6, 2025.
The assailant had threatened a business owner with a knife and ran out with cash. The victim and other witnesses described the assailant and provided a license plate number.
Within a couple of hours, the man’s movements were tracked by Flock cameras to his Michigan City residence, where he was arrested.
Jim Woods is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.