Chesterfield County unveiled a new program Monday morning: Drones as First Responders. It aims to send drones into the field as emergency scenarios occur but comes as privacy concerns and the use of AI in law enforcement makes headlines.
“The mission is and will always be protecting people, reducing harm and strengthening public trust,” said Chesterfield County Chief of Police Frank Carpenter, announcing the localities new DFR program, which aims to use drones to collect intelligence during emergencies.
As part of a demo Monday, the county walked media through a drone use scenario, launching one from the roof of a local high school, sending it to a local park as if it were looking for a missing child, and then having it return to its dock.
“A lot of times, when we get calls for service, we’re probably a minute or two behind the phone call," Carpenter said. "Having a unit on the scene quickly like this allows for that intelligence for a suspect vehicle, etc. to be given to responding units as they’re responding.”
The drone program costs about $900,000 for five years of use. The vendor is a company called Skydio, which also provides services to federal agencies like Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the U.S. military.
Considering the breadth of uses, I ask Carpenter a question:
“[Can you put a gun on it?] No, we don’t have any guns on there. [Is there a policy that would not allow the attachment of firearms?] Yes”
The chief said the locality itself generated the policy on how to use the tech – which includes always having a human pilot and not AI on the flight sticks.
“AI is still a thing in question right now," the chief said. "We rely on our people.”
Video collected by DFR drones is to be released by the county within seven days of collection. A new transparency website will host those videos. But Carpenter said the video itself will be hosted on the county’s servers and it won’t be used to train AI.
“Skydio has learned the importance of housing video and having safety measures in place to prevent some of the concerns and issues the community has,” Carpenter said.
