A black-and-white drone about the size of a sofa cushion took off with a gentle whir at the Hawthorne Police Department earlier this month, hovering and darting back and forth a few times before landing on a podium to a round of applause.
A small audience and local TV news crews had gathered to see the unveiling of Responder, marketed as the first drone built specifically to respond to 911 calls by quickly arriving at scenes, beaming a live video feed and, if necessary, dropping off medical supplies.
The company behind the new drone, Seattle-based Brinc— a tech startup with a 24-year-old chief executive — has boasted it will “revolutionize the public safety landscape.” But law enforcement agencies across Southern California and the country already employ drones for a variety of purposes, including 911 response, and skeptics warn about the risk of “mission creep” when the technology is weaponized or used for surveillance.
Some Los Angeles activists have fought to limit police drone use, but Hawthorne’s adoption of Brinc’s Responder is a sign that some local authorities are continuing to embrace unmanned aerial vehicles despite the pushback and price tag.
A contract with Brinc starts in the low tens of thousands and can run into the millions of dollars, a spokesperson for the company said. The exact price depends on what the drones are used for and the number of launch sites, among other factors.
Hawthorne will be the first agency to test out the dedicated 911 drones, with plans to have a small fleet airborne by the end of this year. They will be stationed at charging “nests” throughout the city, ready to be deployed to a nearby emergency, Brinc said in a news 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 distinct difference is the aesthetic, with Brinc adding red and blue lights and a siren to its 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 make itself stand out by having purposely built for a lot of the needs that law enforcement has,” Leone said. “It is an attempt to specifically tailor the drone towards 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 “can be used for completely surreptitious surveillance that a helicopter could never perform — and could pose particular threats to privacy when combined with other technology like facial recognition software, infrared night vision cameras, or microphones to record personal conversations.”
The LAPD adopted regulations in 2019 that said drones cannot be equipped with weapons or facial recognition software.
Police say drones are useful to monitor hostage situations or get a clear view of a barricaded suspect. Drones can also help search for fugitives or missing persons, and they can also provide thermal readings for firefighters.
At the Brinc presentation in Hawthorne, company founder and CEO Blake Resnick played a video with a hypothetical example of a drone in action. A convenience store owner is shown dialing 911 to report a potential robbery after he sees a man with a gun near the store. A drone arrives, and its camera captures footage showing that the suspected weapon is actually a lighter shaped like a firearm, preventing a false alarm.
Police departments in Beverly Hills and Irvine also use drones to respond to 911 calls.
“The drone can get to a call much faster than an officer can even in the best of circumstances and sometimes even clear the call,” said Santa Monica police Lt. Erika Aklufi.
Some local officials shrugged at Brinc’s arrival in Hawthorne and the renewed debate it has sparked.
Former LAPD SWAT officer John Incontro said drones have long been a powerful tool for law enforcement.
“They get there first on scene and they're able to orbit and see what's going on,” said Incontro, now police chief in San Marino. “It’s kind of like having a helicopter available.”
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