After a decade of law enforcement using drones in the Bay Area, Alameda County embraces a next-gen technology

A man in a red hoodie jumped over fences and swiveled through alleys near 165th Avenue in San Leandro, fleeing a suspected domestic violence incident. Above, a drone followed him, streaming live footage of his movements to pursuing police officers and leading them to a backyard where the suspect was hiding underneath a box.

This arrest last September came in part due to the Drone as First Responder (DFR) trial program at the Eden Township Substation of the Alameda County Sheriff’s Office. At a meeting last month, the Alameda County Board of Supervisors heard video testimony from the responding officer about the effectiveness of the drone involved in the chase.

“Because of the UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle), I didn’t have to worry about being ambushed or any threats close by because I had the eye in the sky,” he said.

Though the sheriff’s office has employed drones over the past decade, this new model will be remotely launched from the Eden Township Substation to respond to active crimes and emergency incidents over the next year, promising, police say, to provide real-time reconnaissance to police and firefighters before they arrive and avoid unnecessary dispatches.

The Board of Supervisors voted 4-0 on Tuesday, with Supervisor Nikki Fortunato Bas abstaining, to enter a one-year $600,000 contract with the Atlanta-based law enforcement company Flock Safety to provide a DFR system. The program’s supporters, such as Sgt. Justin Brannon, who heads the sheriff’s office’s Small Unmanned Aircraft System (sUAS) unit, said that having this kind of advance information of an incident is a tremendous advantage for officers attempting to diagnose a situation.

“It’s really been an invaluable tool for road safety, law enforcement and fire operations,” Brannon said. “DFR is the future.”

Drones have been a tool for Bay Area law enforcement agencies for more than a decade now. The San Jose Police Department was the first to jump into UAV space in 2015 when it incorporated a drone response for hostage situations and the agency’s bomb squad. Despite technological advances, the idea then was basically the same as it is now: send the drone to assess an incident and avoid putting public safety officers at risk.

Because federal funding supplied SJPD’s drone, 13 other Bay Area law enforcement agencies were able to share it, providing some hands-on experience to law enforcement officials who believed they were looking at the future of law enforcement.

“Prior to working on the (UAV) unit, I had very little experience with drones and saw them as a toy,” Brannon told Bay Area News Group. “But after five years in the drone unit, my perspective has changed. I’ve seen firsthand how they save time, reduce risk, and even help save lives. We’ve used them to locate missing persons in areas too dangerous or remote to search on foot. We’ve provided real-time information during active incidents that helped keep both deputies and civilians safe.”

The Fremont Police Department and Fremont Fire Department began developing the first joint DFR pilot program in the country in December 2022. Officers stationed drones at fixed locations throughout the city, which could be activated for incidents “as soon as they come into the emergency dispatch center,” according to the city of Fremont’s website. The success of the pilot program led to the Fremont City Council approving the DFR program in February of last year.

The San Francisco Police Department launched its DFR program in March 2024. In the East Bay, infamous Oakland businessman David Duong, who the FBI charged with bribery in January, gifted $80,000 in drones to the Oakland Police Department in 2024. The Peninsula cities of South San Francisco and San Mateo also incorporated drones as a tool of law enforcement.

Elsewhere in Northern California, residents of the rural community of Elk Grove, south of Sacramento, got their first taste of DFR when drones cleared about 24% of calls for service and arrived before officers at 74% of incidents between May and September 2024, according to Elk Grove police data. This led to faster response times, more efficient use of resources, and less waste of taxpayer money, according to Brannon.

But the rapid adoption of this surveillance technology has also raised concerns among privacy experts. Brian Hofer, chair of the Oakland Privacy Advisory Commission and executive director of Secure Justice, became a privacy rights advocate after famed whistleblower Edward Snowden published details of the National Security Agency’s secret and vast surveillance of the American public in 2013. Since then, he’s helped craft cities’ privacy policies, including Oakland’s, for law enforcement drones — guidelines he says he wishes were followed by Alameda County, as well.

“We’ve seen horror stories of police using surveillance tech and databases to improperly track people,” Hofer said. “In an era of Trump, the fact that we so-called ‘sanctuary cities’ are building the surveillance system that Trump is going to use is a talking point that isn’t getting enough media attention.”

For instance, Hofer points to a showdown over data collected by drones in the San Diego County city of Chula Vista, where the police department denied a local journalist’s public records request to view law enforcement drone footage and determine if authorities were violating the public’s right to privacy. The dispute turned into a court case that reached the 4th District Court of Appeals, which ruled in favor of the journalist, Art Castañares.

In Alameda County, drone data is preserved on county servers for 60 days and deleted, unless that footage is being used as part of a criminal investigation or an internal affairs investigation. Hofer pointed out that the Oakland policy he himself helped draft in 2022 only allows for police to hold drone information for 5 days, unless it is part of an investigation. He said the effort to craft Alameda County’s DFR policy, which Hofer was not involved with, was done in collaboration with the county counsel, district attorney, public defender’s office and the American Civil Liberties Union.

“So, could we have a better Alameda County policy? Absolutely. I tried to get them to copy Oakland’s, and they only took pieces of it,” said Hofer. “We can draft it so police get the utility, and we get the civil liberties protections.”

Hofer said any large data collection carries an inherent risk that personal information can be accessed improperly, whether that’s by hackers, stalkers, or immigration enforcement officials.

Brannon believes that the guardrails for the technology are sound in Alameda County and that the benefits of DFR are clear. And he wants to ensure that the public is educated about how and why law enforcement is using drones.

“Whether it’s locating a missing person, responding to a fire, or supporting a critical incident, this technology improves safety for everyone in Alameda County,” Brannon said. “I’ve seen firsthand how drones can save lives and reduce risk to both deputies and the public. However, none of that is worth it if we lose public trust.”