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Hi! I’m Dhruv Mehrotra, a reporter on the Security desk. I’m taking over the newsletter this week to tell you about the first and largest police drone operation in the country. It’s a trend in policing that could hit the skies over your streets soon.
Since 2018, police in a border city in California called Chula Vista have been dispatching drones to investigate thousands of 911 calls. The drones are equipped with high-resolution cameras and powerful zoom lenses, recording everything in their path. They routinely fly over back yards, public pools, schools, hospitals, mosques, and even Planned Parenthood, in the process amassing hundreds of hours of footage above residents who have nothing to do with a crime.
The department says that its drones provide officers with critical intelligence about incidents they are responding to—which the CVPD says has reduced unnecessary police work, decreased response times, and saved lives.
But on the ground, things are a bit more complicated. Let’s talk about it.
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The Eyes in the Sky Over Chula Vista
Back in October 2018, Chula Vista made headlines by becoming the first city in the nation to launch a "Drone as First Responder" (DFR) program. Here's how it works: Teleoperators listen to live 911 calls and decide when and where to send out the department's growing fleet of drones. Since then, spotting drones has become a regular occurrence for residents. Crisscrossing the skies of Chula Vista nearly 20,000 times in total, they're often the first to arrive at scenes of noise complaints, car accidents, overdoses, domestic disputes, and even homicides.
At their best, DFR programs provide officers with intelligence ahead of initiating a potentially deadly in-person contact. Many residents say the drones make them feel safer. Others, though, particularly Chula Vista’s most vulnerable citizens, feel like they’re always being watched.
And they’re not entirely wrong.
We analyzed 22 million coordinates from the drone flights to figure out where exactly drones were sent and why. We calculated the exact number of seconds drones spent in the skies over every single block in the city and found a stark pattern: The poorer the neighborhood, the more exposed to drones residents were. Residents on a typical block in the working-class and largely immigrant west side of Chula Vista had drones in the skies above 10 times longer than a resident of a typical east-side block.
Some residents in these neighborhoods told WIRED they feel constantly watched. Some are afraid to spend time in their backyards or use public spaces, fearing they're being spied on. One resident showed us his medical records and said that he was so tormented by the drones that he ended up in the ER with severe anxiety and sleep deprivation.
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During the pandemic, these drones even broadcast messages while flying low over homeless encampments. Unhoused residents say they felt like they were living in a surveillance dystopia.
The drones are invading privacy like never before. But even with these concerns, most residents support the program.
We heard from a resident who said that, one day while he was away from home, a man banged loudly on his front door. When his 3-year-old opened it, the stranger reached in and tried to kidnap his child. His babysitter quickly yanked the child inside, slammed the door, and dialed 911. Within minutes, he says, a police drone arrived to search for the suspect.
The department did not find the individual, but the man—who spoke to WIRED through his locked door—says that police drones make him feel safer.
Asked if he sees any downsides to the drones, he said, “Not really.”
Chula Vista may be the first department to widely adopt drones, but it’s definitely not the last. In recent years, police departments in New Orleans; Brookhaven, Georgia; and Clovis and Redondo Beach in California have all launched drone programs. In May, the NYPD announced its plans to use drones to respond to gunshot alerts generated from its ShotSpotter platform.
However you feel about them, police drones may be coming to your city too.
The Chatroom
Chula Vista residents have wildly differing opinions on the drone program that don’t map neatly onto their own personal experiences with it. Have you had experiences with drones and other police surveillance technologies? If so, how have they made you feel? Or if not, how do you think you'd feel if this kind of program were implemented in your community? Let me know in the comments below this article.
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What Else We’re Reading
🔗 Israel Secretly Targeted American Lawmakers With Gaza War Influence Campaign: An influence operation orchestrated by Israel pushed pro-Israel and Islamophobic content through a network of fake accounts and sites. (Haaretz)
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The Download
We don’t have a new podcast for you this week, but we’ll get back to our regularly scheduled programming next Thursday. For now, I encourage you to catch up on any episodes you may have missed or check out this conversation between Katie Drummond, WIRED’s global editorial director, and New Yorker editor David Remnick about a potential TikTok ban on The Political Scene podcast.
That’s it from me. You can get in touch with me via email (dhruv_mehrotra@wired.com) or securely on Signal at dmehro.89. Makena will be back next week!
