San Francisco Police Department Use of Drones

Intro thank you okay I think we got everybody here good morning everybody and thank you for being here before I start I want to introduce who's uh standing up here with me of course to my right we have our mayor London breed we have liutenant Tom Maguire Captain Chris Doo our da Brook Jenkins our assistant chief of operations David Lazar and the president of our Police Officers Association Lieutenant Tracy McCrae so again thank you all for being here and attending this uh press conference this morning first of all we're here to talk about something very exciting to us and that's the introd introduction of our our drone program in the San Francisco police department and before I go any further I'd like to give thanks to our mayor London breed and our da for being here because it is her leadership that got us here in The Proposition E that voters passed in March so I'm excited to announce that sfpd has successfully launched our drone program and this is all as I said thanks to our mayor drones have truly been a GameChanger for our Police Department think about this we've been without air support for over 24 years since the early 2000s and our officers have now a tremendous technology at their finger finger tips that other law enforcement agencies regularly use drones offer major benefits that our captain and Lieutenant will discuss here shortly benefits include faster response times situational awareness tactical tools more Precision deescalation more information to formulate a plan officer safety is enhanced avoiding unnecessary police chases and integration with other Technologies such as our flock cameras that we are putting up around around the city as we speak this is truly a forc multiplier and really in light of all of our staffing shortages this could not have come at a better time our first phase of the Drone program included the purchase of six drones with more on the way drones have already assisted sfpd in numerous cases including a sexual assault suspect that was arrested several Auto burglary suspects that were arrested Fourth of July Mayhem that with the use of drones we're able to basically deescalate the situation and and bring that situation to a successful and peaceful resolution very quickly much much quicker than we've done in privious year previous years and we've also arrested violent and wanted Futures with help of our drone technology we have policies in place to ensure that drones are used reasonably and responsibly with safeguards to protect the privacy of the public all of our drone operators have FAA part 107 certification and we plan to increase the use of drones in the months to come to continue to drive down crime in San Francisco so we are integrating drones with our other technology such as I mentioned just a minute ago our alpr flock cameras and also our Public Safety cameras to more effectively and effect and effectively and efficiently respond to Crime crime is down in San Francisco it's down lower than it's been in the past decade and with drones we think we can enhance that even more our officers are working very very hard to make sure that this city is the safest city in America and we will continue this trend with the help of drones our violent crime is down 12% our property crime is down 35% and again I got I have to give thanks to our the leader of our city uh mayor breed for making this all happen and now without further Ado I'll introduce mayor London breed thank you thank you Chief Scott and thank you to our district attorney uh uh Brook Jenkins uh the POA uh president Lieutenant Tracy McCrae and others from the San Francisco Police Department that are joining us here today uh this partnership uh didn't just happen it happened because we worked together uh it all started when last year I had an opportunity to visit uh a number of our stations in San Francisco our police stations and I had conversations uh with many officers directly and the feedback time and time again is we want to do our jobs but we need more tools to do a better job for the people of San Francisco and they would talk to me about technology and how other jurisdictions were using this technology and how effective it was and so last year in October we got together and we made an announcement based on that feedback opposition e was born and we were at Alamo Square where we know is a notorious place for car break-ins uh we have we stood there to talk specifically about using technology not just drone technology but surveillance technology and giving officers the tools they need even in their reportings with their cameras that can allow them to not only spend more time on the streets but effectively do the job of police work that as the Chief has mentioned leads to better and safer results and I couldn't be more happy that the technology that we are finally putting out there whether it's the flock cameras which are also known as license plate readers uh and the surveillance technology that will also be out there on the Streets of San Francisco to these drones uh this is a game changer and I must say that I didn't think it would be as impactful as it has been it has been a game Cher for our city last year San Francisco saw the lowest crime rate we've seen in 10 years not including the pandemic this year we're even 34% lower than we were in 2023 and this technology has been a real game Cher so we're excited about what this mean we're talking about people who are committing crimes in our city who are being not arrested in days but arrested in hours and having this technology has added additional value but despite this technology I appreciate the fact that this department has been working really hard on the retail theft operations the bait car operations and now with this new technology we have another tool to help combat some of the issues that are plagu in our city and they are seeing early results so we will see more and more change as a result of this but I want to be very clear when you cross those lines here in San Francisco there will be consequences and I appreciate our district attorney because she is Prosecuting those cases but we have not abandoned our values of giving people Second Chances providing a robust amount of programs that will get people on the right path and working with different organizations and communities in order to help people but once those lines are crossed we have a job to do to protect Public Safety in this city and now with these technology to tools it's a game Cher and more importantly there is more to come this is only the beginning there the results are already showing very promising uh um impacts in our off our department and I am looking forward to seeing even more as we roll out as I said earlier more surveillance technology training more of our officers to use uh to be certified and use drone technology and making sure that we're taking advantage of every opport to keep the entire city of San Francisco safe so we're really excited about this and looking forward for more to come thank you mayor so now we're going to hear from Captain Chris Delo and Lieutenant Tom Maguire let before they start let me just thank them for their leadership you know this this proposition proposition a was passed in March and the speed in which we have gotten this program together and actually procured drones it it goes beyond the police department but it's really instrumental that these two gentlemen along with uh assistant chief Lazar and many others in our department their leadership made this happen and um before I turn it over to them I also want to thank the other City departments including our contract Administration uh from the mayor's office and and the mayor's office staff and many others who have really did this with speed that's unheard of in our city so um the sense of urgency is the point that I'm trying to make here we have a sense of urgency to make this a safe City and to do the things that the people in this city deserve and that sense of urgency is the reason that we're here now not even six months after the proposition has passed to tell you that we have launched this drone program so with that I'll turn it over to Captain Del gandio and Lieutenant Strategic Investigations Unit Maguire thank you chief uh good morning I'm Chris gandu I'm the commanding officer of our strategic investigations unit uh myself along with lieuten Tom Maguire to my right uh we oversee the Drone program this morning this morning we're going to share some success stories with you so EV this is from uh July 4th obviously uh fireworks being a major issue in our city uh we were able for the first time to get a drone up overhead and get a vision ual uh visual observation of what was going on on the ground without putting our officers in danger while this footage was being uh streamed to us we were able to come up with a strategic plan to get officers in place and disrupt this activity as you'll see here momentarily you can see the officers move in and disrupt the uh fireworks from being set and and chasing folks out out of there to create a safe environment for uh folks in the neighborhood we're able to deescalate that situation because we had a visual observation of what was going on from overhead again as you can see the fireworks stopped and uh the folks dispersed I'm going to talk about a couple cases here of uh our dirt bike B that have been going around the city um some of them just go out kind of have some fun others are actually out committing some crimes in this case they committing Auto burglaries out in the fish DWF area obviously the crime has PL the city for many years and when they on fights it's very difficult to combat this and with this tool in hand it's really enhanced our ability this just from a week ago Friday one of thege Sergeant Eric belder who's here one of the most talented drone operators in the Bay Area and he was able to maintain this footage we were able to coordinate our sources on the ground and affect this arrest that took place right on the amarad and um we're able to uh do this in a safe effective efficient manner um without the Drone it's it's nearly uh impossible to to make these types of arrest so it was very successful um the next day so that happened on a Friday night this was the next night um Saturday night and this vehicle was driving around in the area obviously our flop cameras detect stol stolen vehicle stolen plates this Nissan being a stolen vehicle alerted us to uh to the area some of the officers had had spotted it out in the area with people uh these individuals peeking into Windows of the cars we were able to deploy the Drone get that situational awareness and we were able to again coordinate with our resources on the ground our Citywide Co close who's been instrumental and the impact time we use Tire deflation devices to safely affect this and Prevent D Pursuits and we were able to get those tourists all their luggage back they were very pleased and surprised to get everything back intact and it's just been we've had a lot of success that without this tool um our officers are able to be more safe more efficient and been very successful early in the game so again much of the credits to Sergeant Eric shelder and others as well that participated with us so thank you thank you Chief thank you thank you Captain and thank you so now I'd like to introduce you to our district attorney Brooke Attorney Brooke Jenkins Jenkins thank you Chief and I'd like to thank uh the police department and our mayor London breed for working together to make this possible what you just saw is the wave of the future and sadly San Francisco had been far behind the curve in having the technology that we need as a city to make sure that we can curb crime um and so I just appreciate the two of them working together to make sure that San Francisco as a city has what it needs to not only react once a crime is committed but hopefully have a system that ultimately begins to deter future crime because that's what we ultimately want are fewer victims of crime in our city and this is the beginning of being able to send a message that if you do things in our city that are illegal you will be caught um a part of why I'm here is to announce that the two uh the second and third video that you just saw not only resulted in an arrest but resulted in charges being filed by my office against the individuals who participated in those Auto burglaries and so we always have to look at the steps of the process and so yes we do want arrests but we also want to be able to have the evidence that we need as a DA's office to file charges against these individuals in order to hold them accountable and as a result of that arrest and that footage we were able to file Auto burglary charges on individuals who quite frankly um two of them are repeat offenders of crime and you know as a trial lawyer I tell you jurors um in in 2024 expect to see what happened they don't just want to be told by a police officer what they saw or what their perspective is they would prefer to have uh the ability to independently evaluate the evidence in a case and as you just saw um this is going to be key evidence that my prosecutors can use in the courtroom to not only establish for the jury that the correct person was arrested um identity wise but also be able to really convey and and demonstrate to them what specific conduct occurred and who was responsible for it and so that is why I have been supportive of the use of this technology um from the very beginning because as prosecutors we have to be able to one know that we're Prosecuting the right person and also be able to prove that in court and this technology will be essential in allowing ing us to do so and so again I commend uh the San Francisco police department for not uh being a bureaucratic agency that took months to figure out not only how to how to get and acquire this technology but how to use it um thank you for being on top of things and getting right to it and be helping work together and I think that's also the message today is that no longer um do we have divided leadership in this city we are all on the same page about where we want San Francisco to go and that is to be a safer City for its residents and for its visitors and for its business owners and we are on our way there thank Closing you thank you thank you da Jenkins so in closing just to sum up what You' heard here today you know two of the three incidents that we just showed you involved uh people breaking in cars which has plagued our city for decades as we speak today we're 56% down in car Breakin about 5700 or so car Breakin this time last year well over 13,000 this technology is only as good as the people who are willing to use it and use it effectively and fairly and all the thanks for the use of this technology goes to the people in front of you the lieutenant and the captain but also and the sergeant but also the officers because they have embraced this and as the mayor said they asked for it they embraced it and they're putting it to good use and We believe We Believe with all of our hearts that this is the game Cher that we that we have told you that it is and we believe that crime even though it's at lows that we haven't seen in over a decade then we can continue to do better and drive crime down even further and let me give just one more thanks before I close and that's to our director of crime strategies Ryan C who's in the room right here Ryan please raise your hand because we have to be strategic in what we do and how we use this technology and director Cal and his team are part of that strategy to make sure that we're using this effectively make sure we're using it in a way that meets your approval the people of San Francisco and also make sure that we can continue to drive crime down as I said earlier we have a sense of urgency here and we are taking this extremely serious and we believe that this is a game changer in terms of our technology so thank you mayor thank you da and everybody here and we'll open this up for questions Sergio you got a question yeah quick question so understanding in the history of San Francisco's aerial support unit is it was ended in part because there were some crashes right what are some of the risks with using drones as opposed I mean it's kind of odd because some cities don't realize San Francisco doesn't have a helicopter support program can you talk a little Risks bit about the risks of aerial support from drones in contrast to helicopters well there are risks with any piece of equipment you know drones can crash now the technology is is very Advanced uh some of our technology has collision avoidance technology where um it's almost impossible to crash in anything you also we have to comply with FAA rules you know there's flight uh flight patterns and things like that that we have to be concerned with as we expand this but those things uh thanks to the diligence of our team here we've done a lot of research and we looked we've looked at policies of counties and cities around us we've done field trips to other cities so we believe that we definitely have taken all those risks into account and our policies reflect that we have two unit orders for the two units that are using these and um we believe that we've taken those things into account so we've mitigated as best as we can through policy but there's always risk with using equipment but drones are fairly safe I mean that unlike a helicopter you know if a drone crashes you know it could cause injury and the like but number one you're not investing nearly as much in the equipment you're talking about you know few thousand dollars if that as opposed to you know seven figures or more for a helicopter and uh and I believe in helicopters but short of that this technology is really really what we need yeah okay so can you give us some insight into the deployment I mean are these officers staged around problematic areas in the city and that's when you are actually deploying these drones or how are you responding so quickly yeah the investigation of crime I mean propy calls for number one if we can use them in in Pursuits either the mitigated Pursuit uh one of the cases that you just saw here we actually able to avoid a Pursuit because officers were able to strategically put the spike strips down and so when the suspects tried to run they couldn't so that's what it's all about you know we want to prevent as much as we can crime from occurring and Pursuits from occurring but in the event that we can't prevent them it's very effective and and our bottom line is making sure we apprehend the people committing these crimes so we use them for the investigation of crime we use them if at the end of the pursuit or in some situations maybe during the pursuit if if it meets the the specifications of what the Drone is capable of and that's what the proposition called for and that's how we've been deploying them but I was just wondering do you have the zones around problematic areas in the city ready around those zones they've Zones really been driven by the investigations so as as Lieutenant McGuire pointed out um the one case that you just one of the cases you just saw it started with the flock alprs alerting us that the stolen vehicle was driving around the city our officers then spotted the vehicle drone was put into play to track that vehicle and we were able to then see them committing even more crimes and we were able to apprehend them I mean that that's a textbook scenario in terms of how effective these drones can be does the department have a response to concerns that this violates state law AB 481 about notification on surveillance technology uh we don't AB 481 believe we're violating state law at all as a matter of fact we believe we're in in compliance with state law we did uh submit an ordinance to the board of super visors on June 3rd that ordinance is still pending but state law as well as our city and county uh ordinances we have a year basically to to put this program in place and then that'll be evaluated and approved so when the next year's uh 481 report Comes This will be in it because we report for the previous year so we believe we're in total compliance with state law Christi yeah for those who are concerned about privacy issues um to clarify these drones are not up kind of surveilling passively this is my first question and then I also had a question about how long uh the video is stored once that video is captured and where is it stored is it stored in Secure servers that yeah Drone Policy so yes the servers are secure and as far as the the Drone policy we do have a retention if it's a if it's a First Amendment uh type of thing that ends up uh necessitating the deployment of drones because of crowd management crowd control situations we unless there's crimes committed we don't store that that we don't save that if it's a criminal situation like what the da spoke about we will save that until the crime and the case is resolved uh otherwise is it the 30 or year 30 30 30 days so 30 days we we purge that information unless we can tie it to a crime and the drones are not passively surveilling other words they're not just launched to watch over unless there's a there's a suspected incident that's Critical Incidents correct so we're not we're not just hovering flying drones over the city just for you know unknown purpose when we deploy these drones it's connected to a criminal investigation and or some critical incident uh like you saw in the Fourth of July with the fireworks you know that situation was getting out of control very quickly it's those type of situations where we we deploy we don't just passively fly it around and looking for something unless it's very specific Mission focus on a specific crime or critical incident we have time for two more questions do you see this implementation as alleviating some of the recent um complaints that seem to be surfacing Foot Pursuits about the new foot pursuit policy I it'll be helpful for sure uh we we don't have the benefit or did not have the benefit of having aerial support and especially in a foot pursuit when you're trying to set up a parameters I mean that's a game changer I keep using that word but it's true because what what happens when you don't have that type of support you're much quicker to go into an apprehension mode you know you you try to chase the person until you catch them when you have the luxury of aial support you can slow things down a bit you can set up your perimeter uh and these these drones are very effective in terms of doing that the operators are they know what they're looking for we get the perimeter set it's safer all the way around and it's more effective so yeah it's it's really a big deal and we believe it enhances our foot pursuit policy there's nothing contradictory about it last question just two quick questions uh one how much does this program overall cost the city um I have that right now I think we Cost are let's see we'll get that to you the next question yeah well why did you find it yeah so Why did you find it the total cost so far has been uh $35,000 and that we in our budget this year thanks to the board and the mayor we do plan to purchase more so that cost will go up as we purchase more drones um the last one it's um a little bit separate from the Drone um conversation uh there's been some claims made that um in regards to the all the uh encampments that are being cleared right now that uh there's been unhoused people that have been arrested or jailed um is there can you comment on that or has there been like an uptick of arrests Is there an uptick of arrests or anything like that um was so is this a drawn question or is this separate separate okay so let me just say this uh even though it's not a drawn question our officers have been instructed to enforce the law and now that the Supreme Court and and has made their decision we've put out a department notice in terms of what we can and can't do what we can enforce and which is the law so our officers been instructed to do just that enforce the law and you know we want to make sure that we have a city that is a clean safe City and that's a part of it you guys thanks for coming out I want to ask you a really tough question the mayor of Minnesota was just selected and he posted this video that you just reposted what do you think of the video that you just he just didn't he just say it's [Music] over black at the top so black