Police, fire, and search-and-rescue teams putting drones to work when minutes matter.
A child was injured by a drone during the July 4 fireworks at Big Bang Boom in Norfolk, Nebraska, the show billed as the state’s largest, on the night of its 50th anniversary. Event organizers, Madison County deputies and Norfolk police identified the aircraft with specialized drone identification equipment before anyone approached the operator, Sheriff…
Minnesota just published something no other state hands its residents: an itemized receipt for every police drone program inside its borders. The Bureau of Criminal Apprehension’s 2025 Use of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles report counts 9,080 warrantless flights across 135 agencies, up 38% in a year, and the Rochester Police Department leads them all. Rochester flew…
The Kent County Sheriff’s Office in Michigan has wired its deputies’ body cameras into its drone fleet. When a deputy presses a button on the camera, the nearest rooftop-docked Skydio X10 launches and flies straight to that officer’s location. The agency stages three of the drones on rooftops across West Michigan, in Cutlerville, Comstock Park…
The FBI said Saturday it has seized more than 600 drones flying in restricted airspace around FIFA World Cup 2026 venues since the tournament opened on June 11, with confiscations recorded in all 11 U.S. host cities. Miami leads the tally at 99 seized drones, followed by Atlanta at 77 and Dallas at 63. The…
A Pasco Sheriff’s Office drone found a missing man in the woods outside San Antonio, Florida, in the dark early hours of July 2, using a thermal camera to pick his body heat out of the surrounding trees. Deputies got the call around 3:25 a.m., put a drone in the air, and used the aerial…
Several San Diego County cities are putting police drones in the air this Fourth of July weekend to enforce a fireworks ban and catch the people who ignore it. Oceanside, Escondido, and Carlsbad updated their ordinances this year to pair steep fines with drone-and-ground patrols, following California cities like Chino and San Bernardino that tried…
Javeayah Harris, a 4-year-old girl, has been missing from Aiken County, South Carolina since the night of June 30, and the search for her now covers more than 3,000 acres. She was last seen around 8:15 p.m. near Hillsboro Street and Ridgecrest Road, wearing Minnie Mouse pajamas with pink beads in her braided hair. Drones…
Welcome to your weekly UAS news update. I have four stories for you this week. First up, the EFF is warning about arming police drones. Then a JetBlue pilot reporting a drone strike at 3,000 feet over JFK. Also, another JFK drone sighting that turns out to be just normal operation. And then lastly, we…
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