Drones called ‘game-changer’ for policing — but is CPD late to the game?

Drones are the “future of policing,” but the Chicago Police Department is far behind its law enforcement peers in embracing that technology, City Council members were told Monday.

By comparison, the Illinois State Police has 75 drones. New York City has 55 drones, 56 pilots and a drone dedicated to monitoring New York beaches. San Diego has 47. Los Angeles County, 22.

But the Chicago Police Department has just five drones and three pilots. Its first drones were purchased with grant money late last year and used primarily for surveillance prior to and during special events such as the Democratic National Convention, Lollapalooza and the Pride Parade.

If the Council can find the money and Chicago residents and businesses support it, CPD Sgt. Marcus Buenrostro said he would like to see a “pod or hive” for drones installed on the roof of all 22 district police stations.

When 911 calls comes in, a drone would “automatically deploy to those calls in under two minutes,” giving watch commanders information they need to dispatch officers and also provide arriving officers with pivotal “knowledge of what they’re walking into,” Buenrostro told alderpersons at a joint meeting of two committees: Public Safety, and Economic, Capital and Technology Development.

“Having that ability and really giving the officers that are responding that insight is a game-changer for our department,” Buenrostro said Monday.

“With our workforce being lower and the struggles with recruiting officers, this is really a force multiplier. We’re able to utilize it and cover a lot more area than any patrol car can. We do it with nobody getting injured and no complaints."

Citing national statistics, Buenrostro credited drones with contributing to a 50% decrease in use-of-force lawsuits.

“Officers going into a lot of these situations — they don’t know what they’re getting into. They’re at a heightened level of concern. Having that situational awareness where we can tell them — or they can even view from their phones a livestream of what they’re walking into” defuses the situation at the front end, he said.

The search for technology to assist law enforcement gained urgency after Mayor Brandon Johnson followed through on his promise to cancel the city's agreement with ShotSpotter — and then issued a request for information on other technologies.

Ed Yohnka, a spokesperson for the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois, noted police officers in Illinois “just got an expansion” in their ability to use drones around large events.

"We ought to assess how that’s working before we expand it any further," Yohnka said.

“Drones have an enormous capacity to surveil people without their knowledge — to look into buildings, into cars, into apartments — and we ought to move very slowly with that kind of surveillance technology without having in place the appropriate privacy regulations to guard against peoples’ rights being violated,” Yohnka said.

Without strict controls and a public debate about the potential benefits to public safety, there is a huge risk police could violate privacy simply because they “believe" someone is involved in criminal activity — not because "they actually are,” Yohnka said.

“You’re concerned about video that’s captured through drone technology being leaked, simply because it may be embarrassing or it may be prurient in some way and not really anything related to public safety,” he said.

The ACLU’s argument didn’t fly with most alderpersons at Monday’s hearings.

Ald. Anthony Napolitano (41st), who has served Chicago as both a police officer and a firefighter, said he was “extremely excited” about drone technology.

“If we’re not riding this wave, we’re gonna be left behind,” Napolitano said.

“This could be an incredible part of [cracking down on] the open-air drug market that plagues our city — as well as chop shops, as well as gang territories, you name it," he said.

"If I can get a drone that can help us where we’re missing police resources — especially on the Northwest Side, where they’re taking [officers] and putting them in other places — I’m all in favor of any type of new technology. This is incredible.”

Economic Development Chair Gilbert Villegas (36th) answered his own rhetorical question: "How can we pay for it? It would pay for itself by minimizing the lawsuits that we're paying on a monthly basis."

Public Safety Chair Brian Hopkins (2nd) agreed that, thanks in part to the guardrails imposed by a federal consent decree, Chicago is “far behind other cities, and it’s time to change that.”

“The emphasis for years now has been on placing limitations on law enforcement. … That social experiment has been an abject failure. It’s time to start pushing back on that for the purpose of public safety,” Hopkins said.

Hopkins stressed the need to train drone operators “so they don’t accidentally stray into the realm of voyeurism.” That will also assure the public that “these are law enforcement tools. They’re not used to spy on innocent civilians on their way to the grocery store.”