Police technology is a major business in the US. Altogether, the law enforcement equipment market was valued at nearly $11.7 billion in 2025, and as dystopian toys like self-driving squad cars and crime fighting drone hives make it to market, that number is set to skyrocket.
A growing favorite among police departments throughout the country is the “camera on wheels” platform, known as COWs for short — or “scarecrows,” for a more ominous moniker. While they’re not quite as exciting as “Fallout” style police robots, COWs offer a low-effort solution to departments whose panopticon has a few blind spots.
COWs are basically tiny tow-trailers with a solar panel, battery, and telescoping CCTV mast attached. They’re sold by high-tech ventures such as Flock Safety — shown below — and rented out by legacy security enterprises like Allied Universal.
As Nile Coates, vice president of US sales at surveillance firm ECAM said in a rather uncritical interview with news outlet KTLA5, these towers can easily plug into local police feeds via cellular networks or WiFi, bringing AI-powered facial recognition to any public or commercial location you can dream of.
“Our first line of defense is deterrence. We stop crimes before they start,” Coates told the station. “This presence alone reduces risk, and when activity escalates, our team can dispatch directly to local guard partners as well as law enforcement.”
The amount of cameras deployed by these companies and their law enforcement contractors is staggering. ECAM, for example, boasts a dragnet of over 150,000 cameras, Coates bragged to the news channel.
“Sometimes they’re referred to as scarecrows because they have bright flashing lights on them, cameras, and they look kind of scary,” Logan Harris, CEO of military surveillance company Spotter Global, told KTLA.
Scary or not, Harris says the COWs aren’t going anywhere anytime soon, as police departments, security contractors, and military agencies flood the for-profit surveillance industry with cash.
“The market has spoken,” the CEO told KTLA. “It’s been quite amazing how fast this whole market segment has grown. Having that type of video evidence or other sensor data is really helpful.”
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