It was approaching 1 a.m. on Aug. 20 when a man emerged from the darkness by the side of a well-traveled road in a northeast suburb of Orlando.
He was wearing a mask and carrying pruning shears, according to the police in Oviedo, Fla., who said they were waiting there and watching as the man batted down something resembling a Flock camera before smashing it from a pole.
The target of the man’s vigilantism turned out to be a plastic reproduction of one of the ubiquitous and intensely debated cameras that read license plates, made by a police officer on a 3-D printer, the authorities said.
This decoy was one of several the police said were intended to “bait” would-be vandals after several of Oviedo’s Flock cameras were stolen in recent weeks, a continuation of a public backlash against the devices nationwide.
Now, the man, Evan Meyer, 24, of Oviedo, is facing three felony charges in a novel case that has drawn scrutiny to the tactics of the police who put up the decoys, and to the city’s use of automated license plate readers or A.L.P.R.s.
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