League City Police Department plans to launch drone as first responder program by December

League City Police Department plans to launch drone as first responder program by December

The drones will arrive on the scene ahead of responding patrol officers, providing live video to the officers en route to the scene, Assistant Police Chief Stephen Antley said.

The details

League City City Council voted unanimously at its July 14 meeting to enter a one-year pilot program agreement with Motorola Solutions to add two docking stations with one drone each to locations on the east and west sides of League City. The city has not yet determined the exact locations for those docking stations, Antley said.

The first year of the DFR program will be provided to the city at no cost, and if the city finds the program beneficial, it will enter a six-year agreement totaling nearly $1.8 million, according to city documents.

Why it matters

Antley said the DFR program will be a “force multiplier” for the police department and provide situational awareness before officers arrive on the scene.

"It increases intelligence for the officers that are responding because it is a drone," Antley said. "It gets there, ... there's no traffic in the air, and so it can get there regardless of traffic conditions."

Currently, the department’s average response time is six minutes and 10 seconds, however, with the drones, the department would be able to cut response times to under two minutes, Antley said.

What residents should know

At the July 14 meeting, council member Tom Crews asked Chief of Police Cliff Woitena to address privacy concerns from residents who suspect the drones would be capturing video of their backyards en route to a call.

“When we launch them and they’re going to a scene, the camera is only pointed towards the horizon,” Woitena said at the meeting. “The only time that we would be looking downward is once we arrive at a scene and start to use it for evidentiary value.”