Several local police agencies in Colorado, including the Denver Police Department (DPD), are planning to deploy drones in place of officers to respond to 911 calls.
“This is going to be the future of law enforcement at some point, whether we like it or not,” said Sergeant Jeremiah Gates, who heads the Arapahoe County Sheriff’s Office drone unit. He told the Denver Post.
At least 20 agencies on Colorado’s Front Range already use drone technology for specific tasks, such as searching for missing people, tracking fleeing suspects, mapping crime scenes and providing aerial surveillance during SWAT operations. Now, the sheriff’s office is considering using drones to respond to 911 calls in situations where drones could provide useful information from the scene before officers are dispatched.
Additionally, dispatching drones to non-urgent calls would allow officers to prioritize more urgent calls.
Several local police agencies in Colorado, including the Denver Police Department (DPD), are planning to deploy drones in place of officers to respond to 911 calls. (Kurt “Cyberguy” Knutson)
Beverly Hills Police drone captures robbery suspect falling from ladder into swimming pool
“If you can send a drone over[a suspicious vehicle report]and say, ‘That vehicle is not suspicious,’ you don’t have to send a police officer in and get in the way, and that’s it,” Gates told The Denver Post. “It saves resources.”
But staff attorneys at the ACLU of Colorado said they were concerned about how normalizing government use of drones would affect people’s freedoms.
“We’re concerned about what would happen if there were drones flying over Colorado,” Laura Moraff told The Denver Post. “We’re concerned about how it would impact First Amendment activism, speech, organizing and protesting, because law enforcement surveillance, including drones, could change how people speak and protest.”
The Denver Police Department shelved its only drone deployment in 2018 due to constitutional concerns, but is now considering expanding its drone program with the help of a $100,000 grant from the Denver Police Foundation.
An Airspace Systems Interceptor autonomous drone flies during a product demonstration on March 6, 2017, in Castro Valley, California. (Reuters)
“Our long-term goal is to use drones as first responders,” Phil Gonshack, the department’s director of strategic initiatives, told The Denver Post. “Basically having bases in each neighborhood and being able to use drones to respond to any immediate needs or emergencies that arise within the city.”
Click here to get the FOX News app
“We would never replace a police officer responding to an emergency call,” he continued, “DPD will respond to any emergency call where someone physically requests an officer be on scene. But if there’s a fight on Colfax and Cherokee and we fly the drone and there’s no fight or traffic issue or anything going on, we’ll redirect our officers to other emergency calls.”
Gonshack said Denver police want to create a public dashboard that allows residents to track Denver Police drone flights to allay concerns about potential infringements of residents’ personal freedoms.
Several police departments outside of Colorado have already begun using drones as emergency responders, and the city of Chula Vista, California, has recorded more than 4,000 incidents since 2018 in which officers avoided responding to 911 calls due to the use of drones.
