A black-and-white drone the size of a couch cushion took off from the Hawthorne Police Department earlier this month with a soft buzz, hovering and darting back and forth a few times before landing on a stage to applause.
A small audience and local TV news crews had gathered to witness the unveiling of 'Responder', marketed as the first drone purpose-built to respond to 911 calls by quickly arriving on the scene, a live broadcast video feed and, if necessary, deliver medical assistance. supplies.
The company behind the new drone, Seattle-based Brinc - a tech startup with a 24-year-old CEO - has boasted that it will "revolutionize the public safety landscape." But law enforcement agencies throughout Southern California and the country are already using drones for a variety of purposes, including 911 response, and skeptics warn of the risk of "mission creep" when the technology is weaponized or used for surveillance.
Some Los Angeles activists have fought to limit police use of drones, but Hawthorne's adoption of Brinc's Responder is a sign that some local authorities continue to embrace unmanned aerial vehicles despite the pressure and price tag.
A contract with Brinc starts at a few tens of thousands of euros and can run into the millions of dollars, according to a company spokesperson. The exact price depends on, among other things, what the drones are used for and the number of launch locations.
Hawthorne will be the first agency to test the special 911 drones, with plans to have a small fleet in the air by the end of this year. They will be stationed at charging "nests" throughout the city, ready to be deployed in a nearby emergency, Brinc said in a press release, which listed OpenAI CEO Sam Altman as one of the company's investors .
Many of the features touted in Responder overlap with the commercial drones currently used by law enforcement. One obvious difference is the aesthetic, with Brinc adding red and blue lights and a siren to his craft.
The Santa Monica Police Department began using drones to respond to 911 calls in November 2021, said Sgt. Derek Leone, who oversees the department's drone program. It gets its drones from the major manufacturer DJI, a Chinese-owned company. Brinc emphasizes that its drones are American-made.
"Brinc is definitely trying to differentiate itself by purposefully building for many of the needs of law enforcement," Leone said. "It's an attempt to tailor the drone specifically to our mission, but we operate very capably with what we have."
The Los Angeles Police Department first considered adding drones to its arsenal in 2014, when it received two from authorities in Seattle, where the community had rejected them over privacy concerns.
The ACLU of Southern California raised its own objections at the time, arguing that drones "could be used for completely covert surveillance that a helicopter could never perform - and could pose a particular threat to privacy when combined with other technology such as facial recognition software, infrared night and infrared cameras." vision cameras or microphones to record personal conversations."
The LAPD passed regulations in 2019 stating that drones cannot be equipped with weapons or facial recognition software.
Police say drones are useful for monitoring hostage situations or getting a clear picture of a barricaded suspect. Drones can also help search for fugitives or missing persons, and they can also provide thermal readings to firefighters.
During the Brinc presentation in Hawthorne, company founder and CEO Blake Resnick played a video showing a hypothetical example of a drone in action. A convenience store owner calls 911 to report a possible robbery after seeing a man with a gun near the store. A drone arrives and the camera captures images showing that the suspected weapon is actually a lighter in the shape of a firearm, thus preventing false alarms.
The Chula Vista Police Department in San Diego County became the first to use drones to respond to 911 calls in 2018 as part of a Federal Aviation Administration pilot program.
Officials placed drones on the roof of the police station and deployed them to 911 call locations as needed.
According to retired Chula Vista Police Chief Don Redmond - who now works for Brinc as the company's vice president of advanced public safety projects - the department's drones reached emergency scenes in about half the time as police officers and also recorded ongoing crimes. .
Chula Vista found that sending a drone to a 911 call allowed officers to avoid dispatching an officer 25% of the time, Redmond said.
"Everyone across the country is struggling with staffing goals," Redmond said. "This is an innovative way to keep police officers on priority calls."
Police departments in Beverly Hills and Irvine also use drones to respond to 911 calls.
"The drone can answer a call much faster than an officer can, even under the best of circumstances, and sometimes even clear the call," said Santa Monica Police Lt. Erika Aklufi.
Stop LAPD Spying Coalition organizer Hamid Khan said his group fought to ground LAPD drones between 2014 and 2017, and that there is still "considerable concern" about their continued use.
"They have the ability to surveil, collect data and continuously monitor," Khan said.
While drones may only be intended for specific circumstances, such as 911 calls, Khan fears they will become more ubiquitous over time, with "mission creep" eventually leading to more dangerous applications.
The majority of police drones are not armed, and Brinc says it will never enable its devices to use lethal force, but Khan pointed to North Dakota, which became the first state to legalize it. armed police drones in 2015.
"They claim they will never be armed, but we see how the policy can change," Khan said.
Some local officials shrugged off Brinc's arrival in Hawthorne and the renewed debate it sparked.
Former LAPD SWAT officer John Incontro said drones have long been a powerful tool for law enforcement.
"They are the first on the scene and can orbit the Earth to see what is going on," said Incontro, now San Marino police chief. "It's like having a helicopter available."
After learning about Responder, Incontro wondered what features set it apart from the drones his department recently received and will use to investigate reports of suspicious activity on large estates in the area.
"I didn't know of any company that makes drones specifically for responding to 911 calls," he said. "I don't know why that would be any more special than what I just described."
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This story originally appeared in the Los Angeles Times.
