Police, fire, and search-and-rescue teams putting drones to work when minutes matter.
The Minneapolis City Council deadlocked 6-6, killing a free 75-day Skydio Drone as First Responder trial after members cited the company’s ties to ICE and the Israeli military, despite neighboring cities expanding similar programs.
Campus Guardian Angel pitched its non-lethal school-defense drones to hundreds of officers and administrators at the Arkansas Safe Schools Conference, arguing that a five-second launch and 15-second intercept can buy the minutes police usually do not have in an active shooter attack.
The Seattle Fire Department wants up to three drones for structure fires, water rescues, hazmat calls and mass-casualty scenes, but the rescue program still has to pass through the city's surveillance-technology review process.
A Placer County Sheriff's drone searched inside a barn full of hay bales, located a domestic violence suspect wedged into the stack, and ended the standoff without deputies climbing blindly into a dangerous hiding place.
A Metro Nashville police Skydio drone watched a robbery unfold in real time, guided officers to two arrests, then stayed airborne long enough to locate the discarded boxcutter that underpins the aggravated robbery case.
Palm Springs police used DJI thermal drones and Dock 3 launch stations to track a teen rider from above without triggering a dangerous street pursuit, turning a baited chase into a quiet arrest directed entirely from the air.
BRINC has raised $125 million in a Motorola Solutions-led round that the Seattle company says will expand domestic manufacturing and help scale its vision of placing a 911 response drone on every police and fire station roof in the United States.
Duke Health researchers are dispatching AED-carrying drones to live 911 cardiac arrest calls in North Carolina, testing whether autonomous delivery can beat ambulances by the minutes that decide survival.
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