Axon makes false statements to town that bought its police bodycams, threatens to tase their credit-rating if they cancel the contract

Axon -- formerly Taser International -- makes police bodycams that they sell to towns on the cheap, betting that they'll make it up by gouging the towns for cloud-based storage for footage from the cameras (what could possibly go wrong?!).

The town of Fontana, California bought some of Axon's bodycams to try them out with its police force, but after three years, decided to open up a general call for bids by Axon and its competitors to outfit the whole force. When a rival won the contract, Fontana tried to cancel its contract with Axon.

Axon's sales reps falsely claimed that Fontana could not cancel its contract (the contract actually contained a "termination for convenience" clause that allowed the town to terminate the contract at will), and implied in correspondence with town officials that they would arrange to have the town's credit rating damaged if the town did not continue to pay $4,000/year for a service it wasn't using.

Muckrock used Freedom of Information Access requests to get a copy of the contract and the correspondence and discovered that the town had been lied to by Axon; when they contacted the town to ask about the discrepancy, officials finally reviewed the contract and discovered the lie.

According to Muckrock, Axon's business relies on recurring payments from small towns for cloud services. Axon is entrusted with the most sensitive and potentially damaging information that many of these towns generate, and unethical conduct on Axon's part could lead to catastrophic consequences for people across the country. Read the rest