Drone-as-first-responder programs, pursuit footage, evidence policy, and the departments putting UAS on patrol.
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…
Redmond, Oregon, is replacing its DJI police drones with six Skydio aircraft, and paying for them the way a city buys a fleet of patrol cars: on a five-year financed contract. The city council approved the $410,762 deal with Axon on June 23. The department calls its old fleet obsolete, but the bigger force behind…
A London think tank has assembled the fullest picture yet of the drone incursions that rattled European airbases, airports and nuclear sites since late 2024, and its central claim is serious: Russian intelligence ran a coordinated surveillance campaign launched from vessels in Moscow’s sanctions-dodging “shadow fleet.” The 144-incident dataset is real, the pattern is unsettling,…
Santa Maria’s police department is getting its drone-as-first-responder program off the ground with money raised at a charity gala, not a line in the city budget. The Santa Maria Police Council, a nonprofit booster group, pulled in about $95,000 at its annual fundraiser and is handing the department a $97,869 donation to buy the aircraft.…
Two California cities moved to put police drones in the air the same week, and both ran straight into residents who don’t want them there. West Hollywood launches a sheriff-run drone program by the end of July. Berkeley opens bidding on a public safety package that bundles drones with license plate readers and cameras. DroneXL…
An El Paso County Sheriff’s Office drone spotted people fleeing a Colorado Springs-area home and hiding in the backyard before deputies ever arrived on scene, leading to the arrest of a 44-year-old woman wanted on two active warrants. The Sheriff’s Office Regional Communications Center received a disturbance call around 8:00 AM on June 26, 2026,…
On Monday, Nassau County Police announced a $1 million first-responder drone program that turns emergency response on its head. Instead of waiting for a drone to launch from a headquarters, Nassau is installing eight fully automated pods across the county that can get airborne in under 30 seconds. This is what happens when you stop…
An NYPD drone fell out of the sky and caught fire in DUMBO on Tuesday night, June 23, coming down at 1 Water Street near the entrance to the FIFA World Cup Fan Zone in Brooklyn Bridge Park. The lithium-ion battery ignited on impact. Firefighters put it out. Nobody was hurt. But the aircraft dropped…
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