NYPD To Deploy Drones By Shootings And 911 Calls In NYC

By FrumNews.com

The NYPD will test new first responder unarmed surveillance drones rather than send its costly and noisy helicopters.

The NYPD top brass said at a congressional hearing on the use of drone technology in front of the Homeland Security Committee, that it would outfit precinct rooftops with drone landing platforms at five of the city’s most high-crime neighborhoods with the most shootings. That includes the 67th, 71st and 75th precincts in Brooklyn, the 48th precinct in the Bronx and at the Central Park precinct in Manhattan.

“Drones are not used as weapons and cannot be equipped with weapons of any kind. But they can be used to preserve life,” NYPD Operations Commissioner Kaz Daughtry said at the congressional hearing. “On Friday, April 5, 2024, after a 4.8 magnitude earthquake was felt throughout the Tri-State area, our department ordered our drones be deployed to examine the structural integrity of our city’s bridges.

“Drone technology allows us to work closer with our partners, ensuring the community’s safety.” Commissioner Daughtry concluded.

The NYPD said the drones would be piloted remotely in the presence of a department attorney and would respond to ‘certain’ 911 calls.

“Drones will then fly over to the shooting location prior to a police officer’s arrival on the scene, officers will receive real-time live view footage of what the drone sees via their NYPD-issued smartphones,” a police spokesman said.

The NYPD currently has 85 drones.

Notably, the drone program will include the 71st precinct, which covers most of the Chabad kehilla of Crown Heights.

In September 2023, a plan for the NYPD to fly drones in New York City above the J’Ouvert festival and West Indian Day parade on Labor Day weekend in Central Brooklyn and Crown Heights, a Caribbean-inspired celebration, which has been a yearly nuisance of gun-related violence and lawlessness, was shot down by the New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU) as “racialized discrimination.”

It remains to be seen what the NYCLU will do now.