A blue wooden sign with golden engraved letters reads "City of Syracuse, Dept. of Police" on a green lawn outside of the police station downtown. A blue sky shines down on the scene.
Syracuse Police headquarters on South State Street in downtown Syracuse. Credit: Julie McMahon | Central Current

The Syracuse city council approved $250,000 for a new drone program for the Syracuse Police Department. 

The money will allow the department to build a drone first response program, said Deputy Chief Richard Shoff. 

Throughout the nation, police departments have adopted these first responder drones to send to potential crime scenes. Shoff and other police departments have said the drones can save manpower and provide officers with more information about potential crime scenes before they enter volatile situations.

As of Thursday, Shoff could not say how much each drone would cost or when the department wanted to start deploying them. 

City officials did not respond to the following questions: 

  • How many drones will the department buy?
  • How much will the drones cost?
  • Who will the department purchase the drones from?
  • When will the department purchase the drones?
  • When will the department deploy the drones?

Shoff said his office is preparing a presentation detailing purchase figures, and could have more definitive answers later in the week.

The expenditure was included in the city’s Capital Improvement Program. 

According to Shoff, the department’s main goal for the drones is to cut down response times, but the drones can also evaluate if officers should even be dispatched. 

“The drone can go (to crime scenes) and determine if police were even needed,” Shoff said.

The chief provided an example of a department that receives a call about a man in a park with a gun – who turns out to be a man with a gun-shaped lighter, using it to light a cigarette. According to Shoff, a first responder drone could examine the scene and determine that there isn’t a present threat, which would prevent officers from entering a scene that they perceive to be dangerous.

While the department and council tout the potential for drones to save officers’ time and prevent unnecessary interactions, the use of first responder drones elsewhere has been controversial. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) released a 2023 report calling for police departments to limit their uses of first responder drones.

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Patrick McCarthy is a staff reporter at Central Current covering government and politics. A graduate of Syracuse University’s Maxwell and Newhouse Schools, McCarthy was born and raised in Syracuse and...