The Hamilton County Sheriff’s Office will be the first law enforcement agency in the state to remotely dispatch drones to 911 calls through the Drones As First Responders (DAF) program.
The drones are part of a 10-year contract with Axon, which also includes body worn cameras. The drones themselves are made by Skydio, a California-based aerial robotics company used by law enforcement agencies and the U.S. military. The drones are piloted remotely from the sheriff’s office headquarters in Mt. Healthy Heights. Thanks to a special first responder waiver from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), the drones don’t have to be in the line of sight of the operator and can fly over cars and people.
Kevin Boyle, Skydio’s head of major accounts, said Hamilton County will have three drones in pre-positioned charging docs across the county starting in March, with the goal of having 15 Skydio drones operating by the end of next year.
“As 911 calls for service are received by the sheriff’s department, those calls, through integration with the dispatch system, will show up to our Drones as First Responders pilot here,” Boyle said. “The pilot is able to get the drone on scene before any patrol car is even there, increasing situational awareness and getting that real-time information into the hands of decision makers.”
With that real-time information, Lt. Steve Sabers said the department can reduce manpower hours by about 20%. Officers piloting the drones can respond to calls for service before officers and provide information gathered by the drone pilots that can speed up the investigation process, or even replace the need for an in-person officer entirely.
“For example, a lot of times hours are wasted on the streets,” Sabers said. “Guys responding to disabled vehicles that end up being not occupied, being dispatched to auto accidents and the dispatch comes out northbound 71 and the crash is actually southbound 71. What we’ll be able to do is deploy a drone ahead of time and we’ll be able to see exactly [where the crash or disabled vehicle is] and better direct the officer responding to the quickest path.”
Sabers said the DAF program will be useful in any situation, but he highlighted the need for more visibility on traffic stops, domestic violence runs, assault runs, fights or burglaries in progress.
“Those will be our focus,” he said. “Trying to get there before the officer and provide oversight to give them a little, ‘Hey, there’s a guy in the back yard just so you know when you approach.’”
Considering the presence of drones may be distressing to those experiencing a mental health crisis, CityBeat asked Sabers to explain how such calls will be handled if a drone arrives before an officer.
“Oftentimes, when the drone is up there, the person on the ground doesn’t even hear it,” Sabers said. “We’ve had an incident recently where the [mobile crisis team] actually listened in and decided from what they were seeing that they would respond to the scene, they would make the decision as to whether the person needed to get further help or let them be released to a family member.”
Sabers addressed any RoboCop concerns, saying the FAA has “strict restrictions” on drones with offensive functions, but the drones will have two-way communication capabilities. This means the drone operator could speak to people on the ground, but Sabers said the drones are not meant to replace officers.
“Our expectation is this will never replace the officers on the street — all we’re looking to do is reduce the amount of time spent on different calls for service,” he said. “All we want to do is give our communities one more tool to keep our officers safe and to keep them safe.”
The department said it has developed policy guidelines for the DAF program, which CityBeat has requested in full, but added that these guidelines will be “fluid” in the first year.
“We look across the country,” Sabers said. “Look at what departments have deployed Drones as First Responders already, what policies do they have, how are they working, how do we make that fit in our agency and then adopting on the fly.”
Other major cities that have implemented the DAF program include the New York Police Department and the Boston Police Department. The cost of Hamilton County’s DAF program is not yet clear, according to the department, because the Skydio system is part of an overall bundled contract with Axon. A spokesperson for the sheriff’s office said they are working on identifying the total cost.
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This article appears in Jan 8-21, 2025.
