The Los Angeles Police Department is adding drones to its tool kit for good after commissioners overwhelmingly approved the flying devices this week.
The Los Angeles Police Commission on Tuesday voted 5-0 to allow city police to start using their small fleet of remote-controlled drones.
The approval dismayed privacy advocates, who say they worry LAPD will eventually expand the use of drones beyond their currently limited mission.
LAPD’s year-long test of the machines — “small unmanned aerial systems,” in police parlance — ended in July. According to a report of the pilot program, the drones were deployed only four times in that period.
Each time, the drones were used in responses where SWAT was called to incidents involving aggressive suspects. All of those incidents ended peacefully.
Deputy Chief Horance Frank, who commands LAPD’s SWAT and counter-terrorism units, boosted drones as a way to end incidents like standoffs and hostage situations.
“The program is exactly what we thought it would be,” Frank said told the commission in July. “This cuts down the amount of time we have to shut down a neighborhood — that’s a huge benefit to a community.”
The devices are small and nimble, and pilots can guide them into hard-to-reach places where an armed suspect might be hiding.
The police commission’s vote allows LAPD to move forward with its drone program, but officers will be limited in how they can use them.
LAPD Chief Michel Moore said drones can only be used in a strict set of scenarios — hostage situations, bomb squad responses, active shooter responses and other immediately dangerous incidents. Top SWAT commanders also must approve each drone use.
Some residents and privacy advocates, however, said the way drones are currently used isn’t the problem. They worry instead about how they’ll be used in the future when technology improves.
LAPD cannot equip any of its drones with weapons or facial recognition technology, according to the department’s current guidelines.
But Hamid Khan, a frequent LAPD critic and member of the Stop LAPD Spying Coalition, compared drones to the department’s early use of helicopters — what started as a fleet of one with limited use eventually became the largest municipal helicopter fleet in the world.
“Yes, they’re prohibited from using facial recognition, they’re prohibited form being equipped with weapons. But that’s now,” Khan said. “You have to look at how they’ll be used in the future.”
