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Credit: Michelle Gabel | Central Current

The Syracuse Police Department is again asking the Common Council to approve funding for an autonomous drone program.

Syracuse police first asked the council in November to approve funding for the “drone as first response” program. At the time, reporting by Central Current found the city skipped a key review process meant to curtail its use of surveillance technology. 

The city then required the drones be reviewed by the city’s Surveillance Technology Working Group, which finished Tuesday night its report on the drones, said Deputy Chief Richard Shoff. 

While the report was finalized, it was not provided to the Common Council, Shoff said. 

Councilor Corey Williams said he was surprised to see the drones back on the council’s agenda before seeing the working group’s review and recommendation.

“I’m hesitant to move forward with anything, prior to seeing that document,” Williams said. 

The drone program has also received public pushback from some of the experts who sit on the working group. They say that evidence supporting the drones’ efficacy is insufficient and often comes from the drone manufacturers themselves. 

The experts also are concerned that the drones would infringe on residents’ reasonable expectations of privacy — and the program has the potential to become even more invasive through future expansion. The drones can be outfitted with speakers, spotlights, microphones, and weapons of war. One expert called the program “sci-fi inspired.”

The push comes amid a spike in Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids targeting migrants and undocumented people, especially in sanctuary cities. ICE has accessed technology like license plate readers — which Syracuse lawmakers approved in 2024 — in other sanctuary cities, The Guardian reported Tuesday.

President Donald Trump and his ICE director Todd Lyons have promised to “unleash” ICE and increase the agency’s arrests.

Shoff pushed the council to vote on the funding for the drone program at one of the next two council meetings. Funding for the program is tied to a grant that expires at the end of March, he said. 

The “drone as first response” program would allow the SPD to dispatch unmanned drones in response to 911 calls. After a 911 call, drones would launch and fly themselves to the location of the call. It’s unclear whether the drones would film throughout their flight path — a point of contention for someone on the working group. 

The department hopes to emulate other law enforcement agencies around the nation, which tout the drone program as a critical development to decrease response times and increase situational awareness for responding officers.

Mayor Ben Walsh established the Surveillance Technology Working Group in 2020 as part of a package of executive orders meant to reform the police department. The working group includes a group of stakeholders, experts and members of Walsh’s administration. 

After initially sidestepping the working group’s review process, the city then submitted the program in December for a full review from the technology group and a corresponding public comment period.

Williams asked Shoff on Wednesday what had changed about the program since they first recommended it. 

Shoff responded by saying he did not remember if, in November, the department had asked to enter into a grant agreement, or to actually spend the grant money. The department asked the council to fund a “drone as first response” program, according to past council agendas. 

Some councilors asked for clarification on the drone program, as they have not received new information from the department or the working group since the drone program was withdrawn from the council agenda in December.

That prompted Councilor Chol Majok, who chairs the council’s Public Safety Committee, to call for a public committee hearing, which Shoff agreed would be informative. Shoff said the department has also planned a public education period, but did not specify what that would entail or when it may begin.

Majok then said “there’s no deadline on this,” but Shoff interrupted to say the grant the department intends to use expires at the end of March.

“So we want to round this up quickly, then,” Majok said.

Majok did not specify when the council will host the Public Safety Committee hearing on the drone program.

At the time of publication, Majok could not be reached for comment.

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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...