News, deep dives, and analysis — every Drone as First Responder story, newest first.
The Orlando Police Department activated its automated Drone as First Responder network on June 17, four months after council approved the $6.83 million contract amendment to deploy 11 Skydio drones across nine rooftop docks. The system is now responding live to 911 calls involving life-threatening situations, major property damage, and time-sensitive emergencies. Orlando is the…
The Normal Police Department will add a Flock Drone as First Responder unit to its existing six-drone fleet under a one-year pilot, after the Town of Normal Council approved the $50,000 purchase at its June 15 meeting. The seventh aircraft is the department’s first Flock platform and the first one in the fleet designed for…
Skydio CEO Adam Bry published a long-form article on X on June 8 making a direct case against the trend of building large quadcopters for Drone as First Responder (DFR) programs. His argument is not marketing. It is a physics-driven attack on the entire premise that a bigger drone with a bigger camera is the…
Port St. Lucie’s police department flipped the switch on its new Drone as First Responder program on June 11, and the system did not wait long to prove itself. Within hours, a remotely launched drone located a missing autistic woman before she could reach a nearby canal, arriving on scene ahead of the responding officers.…
Vancouver just became the first city in Canada to put police drones on rooftops, ready to launch the second a 911 call lands. The Vancouver Police Department is rolling out six Skydio X10 aircraft in docked Drone as First Responder stations across the city, approved by Transport Canada and timed to arrive before the 2026…
A shoplifting run at a Buena Park Kohl’s ended with two people in custody on June 9, and the deciding factor never touched the ground. When one suspect bolted on foot and folded himself into a stranger’s backyard shed, he figured the dark and the fences would hide him. A police drone overhead, reading his…
Metro Nashville Police put three Skydio drones in the air over the Madison precinct before the Metro Council ever signed off, and now the program is catching heat for it. The department says a legal exemption let it skip approval. A council member and community organizers say that reading bends the rules. The drones are…
Cathedral City Police now cover roughly 90 percent of the city from three rooftop drone docks, and they did it on DJI hardware while half the country is being told to rip Chinese drones off the roof. The department has flown drones since 2018, but the Drone as First Responder expansion is the part that’s…
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