The St. Paul City Council votes Wednesday afternoon on whether the police department can apply for a $200,000 Department of Justice grant to buy more drones. The vote was supposed to happen a week ago. Members laid it over on September 2 after residents filled the chamber with protest signs, and at least two of the seven signaled they were already opposed.

Then, on Monday afternoon, one of the three Skydio X10 aircraft DroneXL identified on St. Paul rooftops in June found a child with autism struggling in a pond.

The drone reached the pond before the officers did

St. Paul police received a 911 call Monday afternoon about a child struggling in a pond. A docked drone arrived roughly two minutes ahead of the first officers, pinpointed the child and reported their condition. An officer went into the water and brought the child out.

The family told police the child had wandered off unnoticed, according to FOX 9. The department credited its docked program by name, two days before Wednesday’s vote.

The program is barely three months old. Three Skydio X10s went live May 30, one per patrol district, and flew 472 missions in four weeks, beating the department’s 436 patrol flights for all of 2025.

Two council members committed to voting no before the item came back

Ward 4 councilmember Molly Coleman told the September 2 meeting she would vote against the grant regardless of when it came up. Ward 5’s Hwa Jeong Kim signaled the same. Council President Rebecca Noecker did not say how she would vote but pressed the department on data control.

Coleman was blunt about the timing, as Harry Colbert Jr. reported for Power 104.7. “Whether we vote today or vote next week, I will be voting no,” she said, citing months of council argument over surveillance and civil rights. Noecker relayed the resident question she hears most: “Is there a drone outside my window? Is it following me?” Deputy Chief Kurt Hallstrom said the aircraft launch only on calls for service, the department shares no drone data, and every flight is posted to the city’s public safety technology page within 12 hours.

The council is not in a permissive mood on surveillance. The city ended its use of Flock license plate readers in late August.

Minneapolis rejected the same vendor in July

Across the river, the Minneapolis City Council deadlocked 6-6 on July 16 and killed a free 75-day Skydio trial. Opponents cited the company’s sales to the Israeli military and its Homeland Security work on immigration enforcement. St. Paul already flies Skydio hardware under an existing contract.

That proposal died on vendor politics rather than drone politics, and the coalition behind it moved to St. Paul in August. Every public Drone as First Responder rollout in Minnesota has gone to one manufacturer, from Minnetonka’s fire station launch to Brooklyn Park’s $4.6 million approval. A vote against Skydio here is a vote against DFR.

DroneXL’s Take

St. Paul will win this vote or lose it on a number the department has never published. DroneXL flagged the gap in June: the city released flight counts, arrests, and rescues, but no program cost. Three months later, that silence is the strongest argument against the grant.

The activists in the chamber have a real complaint underneath the vendor politics. St. Paul grew an existing contract into a dock-based DFR program without a new public hearing. Minnesota law requires a comment period to start a police drone program, not to expand one. The department stayed inside the rules and still handed its critics the argument.

I want this program to survive, and Monday afternoon is why. A drone over a pond two minutes before the first officer is the case for the technology, and nobody has to spin it. Two minutes of footage does not answer who pays, how much, or who audits the flight log. My read is that publishing the contract and an annual operating figure would have retired most of the opposition.

The council meets at 3:30 p.m. Five members decide it.

Sources: CBS Minnesota, FOX 9, Power 104.7, Saint Paul Police Department

DroneXL uses automated tools to support research and source retrieval. All reporting and editorial perspectives are by Haye Kesteloo.