Councilor Chol Majok for the fourth time this year withdrew a proposal by Syracuse Police Department officials to buy software to launch a drone as first responder program.
Majok’s withdrawal of the proposal happened nearly a year to the date that the Common Council unanimously approved the department’s purchase of the autonomous drones. A series of policy snags, objections and procedures have stopped the drone program from being launched.
Drone as first responder programs have proliferated across the country but have been controversial, including in Syracuse. DFR programs allow law enforcement agencies to dispatch self-piloting drones ahead of officers to 911 calls.
Syracuse police officials have said the program could reduce response times and boost capacity at a time when the department has fewer officers than it has in the past.
Civil liberties advocates and technology experts have in recent years encouraged cities to limit their police departments’ approved uses of the drones. Those groups argue that, without guardrails, DFR programs can lead to unconstitutional dragnet surveillance of innocent civilians, with chilling consequences for individuals’ rights to protest, and the potential to target immigrants and abortion-seekers.
After Monday’s withdrawal, the drone program’s launch timeline is unclear.
Majok at a Public Safety Committee meeting told police officials he planned to pull the software legislation to work on it and put it back on the council’s agenda. Majok chairs the committee.
Majok on Monday appeared to ignore questions on the drone program by walking away from a Central Current reporter who asked him when he expects to reintroduce the drones to the council’s agenda.
Deputy Chief Richard Shoff on Monday evening told Central Current in a message that he hoped to have a timeline soon, but wasn’t sure when that would be. Majok communicated to the department that he wants to hold a “public education session, a public hearing, and a public safety committee meeting” – but wasn’t sure when those meetings would be held, Shoff said.
A timeline on the first responders’ drone is unclear, but the proposed drone program has endured a year-long saga since the department first requested approval to buy the hardware last November.
Councilors on Nov. 12, 2024, approved Syracuse police’s request to purchase drones and related hardware through a contract with Axon, set to last until 2030.
Then, on Dec. 3 of that year, Central Current revealed the city had sidestepped Mayor Ben Walsh’s established review process for surveillance technologies. The city and police department argued the new drone program is an extension of the department’s existing drone operations, which include SWAT drones and tethered, manually operated drones.
After some of the mayor’s handpicked experts criticized the city’s plans and called for a full review of the drones, the Walsh administration reversed course and subjected the drones to a full review by the Surveillance Technology Working Group, the mayor’s standing oversight body.
In February, City Hall held a public comment period about the drones that yielded a record number of responses, more than 67% of which were negative — the most negative response for a technology to date.
In March, the mayor’s experts finalized a recommendation on policy guardrails to limit the department’s use of the first responder drones. The police department returned to the council, where department leaders pressed councilors to push the drone approval through before the end of the month in order to meet a deadline for a state grant the department hoped to use to purchase the drone software.
Majok then called a Public Safety Committee meeting to give police an opportunity to present information to assuage some councilors’ privacy and data-sharing concerns.
That committee meeting — in which SPD leaders ran into technical difficulties while presenting a drone firm’s marketing video on YouTube — left councilors unconvinced.
Majok at the time expressed frustration with the department for not providing more information to councilors before pressing them to make a determination before the grant deadline. The following day, Majok withdrew the legislation from the council’s agenda.
Police department leaders returned to the council in April to once again court the councilors.
This time, though, the department presented an expanded plan for use of the drones.
Department leaders had previously characterized the program as a tool that could supplement officers by reducing response times in high-priority calls like active shooter situations, search-and-rescues and hostage crises.
The department’s restated intentions included using the drones for any and all 911 calls — such as low-level offenses like vandalism, noise disturbances, and traffic violations — irking some councilors and sending the drone program back into backroom policy discussions.
By July, the police department tried for the third time to earn the council’s go-ahead on SPD’s first responder drones. Majok on July 28, though, again delayed the council’s vote on the drone software.
A month later, Majok announced the council would hold another Public Safety Committee meeting, followed by a public hearing for residents to voice opinions in the council’s chambers. Four concerned residents showed up to railed against the proposed drones.
The next day, in the third public safety committee meeting about the drones, the council hosted the most thorough public discussion in almost a year’s worth of back-and-forth.
The police department responded to those concerns with a commitment to work with councilors to revise its policy.
Seven weeks after that commitment, Councilor Corey Williams on Monday evening said he wasn’t sure when residents could expect to see the first responder drones reappear on the council’s agenda.
Among other councilors, Williams has pressed the police department in committee meetings for details on how the department plans to protect residents’ privacy — especially in places where residents have a reasonable right to privacy, like their backyards.
“It’s my understanding that the police department is taking a look at their policy, and that we can expect to see changes to that,” Williams said. “When that’s going to happen, I’m not quite sure.”
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