Edison, New Jersey, is buying a thermal-equipped police drone from Flock Safety, not from Skydio or BRINC. The Township Council voted 6 to 1 on Wednesday, September 23, to spend $589,000 over three years on the drone and 92 more Flock license plate reader cameras, and Mayor Sam Joshi signed off Thursday.

The money comes from asset forfeiture funds, not the township budget. Edison already runs 22 Flock cameras plus 62 plate readers mounted on police cars. The cameras go up within weeks. The drone follows in a few months, once 911 dispatchers are trained to launch it with a button press to the coordinates of a call.

Joshi says the drone will reach any address in Edison’s 32 square miles (83 square kilometers) in about 45 seconds. Flock publishes an 86-second average response for its drone program.

Edison’s Description Points To Flock’s Alpha Drone

The resolution Edison passed did not name the equipment, but Joshi told PIX11 the drone is a Flock unit that flies at 60 mph (97 km/h) with thermal imaging. That matches the Flock Alpha, the aircraft Flock’s drone as first responder product runs on.

Flock unveiled the Alpha in October 2025 as an NDAA-compliant quadcopter designed and assembled in Atlanta, a year after its $300 million-plus Aerodome acquisition. The Alpha spec sheet lists 60 mph as top speed, plate reads from 2,000 feet (610 meters), and a 4-mile (6.4-kilometer) operating radius per dock. Flock has been selling the Alpha on its camera since late May, and the pitch reached Edison intact: Joshi told PIX11 the drone “can actually lock a target.”

PIX11 reports it will be the first Flock drone in New Jersey with thermal.

Forfeiture Cash Pays For It, And One Councilman Wanted Officers

Councilman Richard Brescher cast the only vote against the purchase and said he would rather spend the money on two police officers, while supporters countered that officers cannot be everywhere at once in the township and that seized criminal proceeds, not local taxes, foot the bill.

Brescher told the meeting “I think they’re invasive,” according to NewsNation, while granting that the cameras work. Council President Joseph Coyle defended the buy in MyCentralJersey’s account of the meeting: “I never want to be part of the would have, could have, should have.”

Joshi said drone video will be stored for one or two days before deletion, and that neither camera nor drone data will go to Flock or to the Department of Homeland Security for immigration enforcement. A state Attorney General directive, 2022-12, governs the plate readers. Nothing comparable governs the drone: Dillon Reisman, a staff attorney at the ACLU of New Jersey, told NewsNation the state has no statute restricting how police use drones.

Edison is not the first department to fund a drone this way. Conroe, Texas, approved two Skydio X10s and two docks bought with forfeiture money in December 2025.

Flock’s Own Average Is Nearly Double The Mayor’s 45 Seconds

At its 60 mph top speed, the Alpha covers three-quarters of a mile (1.2 kilometers) in 45 seconds. That is before launch and climb. Flock’s own DFR page claims an 86-second average response and says the drone reaches the scene first on 78% of calls.

Those are Flock’s figures, not independent ones, and they are still roughly double the mayor’s. Normal, Illinois, which added a Flock DFR unit to a six-drone fleet in June, set its expectations lower: its chief predicted first-on-scene about 70% of the time.

Joshi’s 45 seconds could hold near a dock. Whether it holds at Edison’s edges depends on how many docks the township is buying and where they sit, and no official quoted in coverage of the vote has said.

DroneXL’s Take

Edison picked the right kind of tool and sold it with the wrong number. A drone that gets thermal eyes on a missing child or a burning house before a patrol car arrives is drones used for good, and an NDAA-compliant, American-assembled aircraft keeps Edison out of the DJI fight entirely. But a 45-second promise that the manufacturer itself doesn’t make is how DFR programs lose public trust the first time a resident times the drone. Oakland County’s council approved Flock drones over a privacy revolt in April, and Edison just handed its critics an easy fact-check. If you live in Edison, I’d ask the council two things before the drone flies: how many docks, and what response time, if any, Flock committed to in the contract.

Sources: PIX11, NewsNation, ABC7 New York, MyCentralJersey, Flock Safety

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