Chula Vista’s Police Drones
by Michael Dean Thompson
The Federal Aviation Administration has relaxed its rules so that drones can be flown beyond line-of-sight by certain groups such as cops, firefighters, and even construction companies. Some policing agencies are choosing drones that only point the camera down at the ground when they arrive at their destination. However, a recent article by Wired says that the town of Chula Vista is not one of them. Instead, its cameras routinely pass over mosques, public pools, schools, hospitals, and backyards with their cameras slurping up “hundreds of hours of footage.” They even manage to find routes over Planned Parenthood, capturing images of people at a difficult time in their life as they potentially make difficult choices. None of those images have anything to do with a suspected crime beyond being somewhat “on the way.”
Chula Vista, California, was the first city to adopt a “Drones as First Responder” program. Since then, their drones have been sent out almost 20,000 times. They may be seen at homicides, but they have also been sent out to car accidents, domestic disputes, and even noise complaints. For some residents of Chula Vista, the drones have become a common presence, leading people to tell Wired they felt they were being constantly watched. Chula Vista’s unhoused residents have even been subjected to low flying drones broadcasting audio messages.
One Chula Vista resident told Wired about how a drone was a first responder when a man attempted to kidnap his three-year-old son. The child had answered the door ahead of his babysitter and the stranger on the other side of the threshold attempted to reach in and grab him. The babysitter managed to pull the child to safety and call 911. Minutes later, the drone arrived and found nothing. Nevertheless, the man told Wired he felt safer and could not see anything wrong with drones flying overhead.
Other residents disagree. One resident pointed to his medical records, saying the drones caused him to visit the ER due to anxiety and sleep deprivation. That may be because some areas see the drones far more than others. A pattern arose when Wired reviewed some 22 million drone coordinates—the poorer the neighborhood, the more time the drones spent there. According to Wired, a working-class neighborhood on the west side of Chula Vista, composed largely of immigrants, saw drones spend 10 times as much time overhead than that of the typical east side block.
Nevertheless, drone use by law enforcement is spreading. In 2023, Forbes counted 1,400 cities in the U.S. that use the them. Since then, the NYPD reported in May 2024, that it will be using drones to investigate alerts from the ShotSpotter platforms, which is yet another piece of controversial cop tech.
Source: Wired.com
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