The city of Warren’s police and fire departments have launched a program in which drones act as first responders, reporting information to officers on the ground.
Warren Police Department Innovation and Technology Lieutenant Brandon Roy said the idea is to help law enforcement assess scenes and threats, locate involved parties, and coordinate a safer and more effective response.
Roy said the police department decided on the program in late 2024, and drones placed around strategic locations around the city went online March 5.
“There's a lot of things that a drone can do that a ground asset just quite frankly can't,” Roy said. “Our drones have thermal cameras as well as very robust color cameras, so they can see at a distance, they can identify threats from the sky.”
Roy said the drones are purchased from a company called Skydio. He said they have safety features built into them, a regular radio frequency antenna, and a redundant cellular modem inside the drone itself.
“As the drone is flying, it's transmitting real time video. It's transmitting telemetry data,” he said. Roy said they’re able to send live views down to officers on the ground. Drone operators can also relay what they’re seeing to law enforcement.
“They can get information relayed from the drone pilots, from the dispatcher, or they can go back and review the video later because this video is stored for a period of time in a secure evidence vault after the fact.”
Jeff Middleton, the chief safety officer of the Warren Fire Department, said the goal is to be able to send a drone into a hazardous situation without risking a person’s life. “We can replace drones,” Middleton said. “We can't replace people.”
Middleton said the drones would be sent to fires, emergency incidents, and hazmat incidents.
Roy said all of their drone pilots are specially licensed through the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), and the department has a special waiver from the FAA to fly out of the operator's line of sight. Roy said drone operators perform pre-flight checks as well.
“We do rigorous maintenance on them,” he said. “We have many checks and balances in place to make sure this remains a safe program.”
Roy said congested airspace and traffic management is a challenge because the departments share airspace with commercial drone delivery companies as well as civilian hobbyists and social media live-streamers flying around police and fire scenes to try to get footage.
There have been concerns around the state about the "proliferation" of law enforcement agencies using drones for surveillance and the potential for infringing on people's rights to privacy.
The city of Warren will not be using the drones for random routine surveillance flights or equipping them with facial recognition technology, Roy said. He said the drones do not fly without documented calls for service and will not be listening to conversations or carrying any form of weapon.
Roy said the public feedback on the drones has been “overwhelmingly positive.” “We've been showing off our fire department drones for almost three years now,” Middleton added. “And we've gotten nothing but positive feedback from the community.”
Middleton said collaboration between the police and fire departments is important because they share many of the same 911 calls. “We have a very good relationship,” he said.
