The Sacramento Police Department launched a trial Drone First Responder program in November in an effort to reduce response times and increase public safety, they say.
The Drone First Responder program — which the police department operates in conjunction with the Sacramento Fire Department — began in late November and will conclude on Dec. 21. It’s currently only operating in Del Paso Heights.
According to Sac PD Sergeant Dan Wiseman, the program allows the department to use small aerial systems, commonly referred to as drones, to respond to calls for service from a separate location. These drones arrive at incidents before officers and can send back extra information to help the department determine what’s needed in response.
The drones operate Wednesday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. and cover a two-mile radius. Wiseman said the drones give Sac PD critical overwatch before their officers respond.
“They can help verify specific information, assist in different things, and hopefully our goal is to sort of eventually reduce response times and increase the safety of our officers,” Wiseman said. “And obviously, using this technology to make our community safer.”
Wiseman said the program is going well so far. Since the beginning of the trial, they’ve responded to about 70 calls.
“We're averaging about 10 calls per night and so far it’s going really well, and we're obviously going to continue to evaluate how the tools are assisting us and helping us become more efficient,” Wiseman said. “Is it a tool that can help our officers remain safer and in doing so keep our community safer.”
Officers say they chose Del Paso Heights as the trial location because it experiences a high volume of calls. Wiseman added the department also considered how the program could impact noise pollution and infrastructure like airports.
“As we progress, we have seen our technology improve, so we want to be able to take advantage of those opportunities,” Wiseman said. “By doing so, it can reduce response time, also if it's a critical incident, and we can sort of get that broader view from in the air from one of these drones.”
He said the drones are able to capture more information about an incident as officers respond to the scene.
“One thing that's kind of interesting about it is that with this technology, our officers can watch a live video feed of what the drone is seeing in real-time while [they] respond to the call,” Wiseman said. “And so that's a unique capability that we can utilize, keeping everyone a little bit safer.”
Wiseman mentioned one recent success of the Drone First Responder program: An individual ran away from officers and the drone was able to fly overhead and watch in real time what that person was doing. Patrol officers were eventually able to find and arrest the person who had run away.
“I think again, that's just sort of utilizing the technology of being able to watch that live feed while the officers are out on call,” Wiseman said. “We don't often get same-time information, and so when we can, that's something that definitely helps us, but I know that is one call for sure that I was told about that worked with the DFR program.”
Sac PD has a drone team that has been in operation since 2019 and employs 24 certified drone pilots. According to a press release, the team has conducted more than 170 emergency call responses and over 573 drone flights in 2024.
This Drone First Responder program operates from a fixed location, while the drone team is integrated throughout Sac PD’s operations division, Wiseman said.
“This ensures rapid deployment to any location within the city when a drone is needed for a call,” Wiseman said. “Officer safety is a key focus of the DFR trial. Having a UAS on scene provides critical updates to responding patrol officers and fire personnel, significantly enhancing situational awareness.”
The Drone First Responder program is new to the city of Sacramento, but it's not new to the region. Earlier this year, Elk Grove City Council approved $2.1 million in funds to the city’s police department for a new Drone as a First Responder program.
There is no cost for the program at this time because Sac PD is using existing equipment, Wiseman said.
Sacramento Police Department maintains a Unmanned Aerial System transparency page where drone movement can be tracked by the public.
“We will continue to evaluate the outcome and kind of see how it's going,” Wiseman said. “We would invite any member of our community to visit our transparency page on our website, just to kind of keep track if they would like or have questions about it.”
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