Drones, robots, license plate readers: Police grapple with community concerns as they turn to tech for their jobs

Officers on the ground used the drone to live stream video from the second- and third-floor windows, giving them the opportunity to assess the gravity of the situation and the location of the suspect. They quickly learned the man did not have any visible weapons on him.

“There was no risk to life, so we let him sit in there and did our best to communicate with him,” said Lt. Scott Nelson of the Mountain View Police Department. “No use of force was needed.”

The situation ended peacefully when after four hours, the man, who was experiencing delusions, exited the home voluntarily, police said.

Police across the United States are increasingly relying on emerging technologies to make their jobs more efficient. In their daily work, they are using drones, license plate readers, body cameras and gunshot detection systems to reduce injury and bodily harm. The move comes as some law enforcement agencies are struggling with retention and hiring during the pandemic, when hundreds of cops in cities including Los Angeles and New York were sidelined because of the spread of the coronavirus. As police departments determine which technologies to adopt, they are also grappling with growing concerns about privacy that these technologies bring and potential complications they could create for officers on the job.

“Tech can be a great tool for law enforcement to use,” said Sgt. James Smallwood, Nashville-based treasurer of the national Fraternal Order of Police. But “as with anything else, we have to balance the line of privacy and meeting the expectation to promote public safety.”

Enter the two drones that Mountain View police say cost $16,000 to begin operating and that they’ve used about a dozen of times in the past two years. They’ve helped in potentially dangerous situations, search efforts and finding weapons. As a result, the department is looking to expand the program to include more drones with more features such as longer flight time, higher video quality and infrared capabilities, which help detect body heat.

DJI, the Chinese tech company that makes many of the drones adopted by police departments, said more than 1,000 police departments across the country use some type of drone. But most departments that purchase DJI’s drones do so through American suppliers, DJI’s North American spokesman Adam Lisberg said. Drones are proving to be a police force multiplier across the nation, aiding with everything from lost children to dangerous suspects to crash reconstruction. But Lisberg doesn’t think they’ll ever replace police officers.

“You need a sense of humanity at work in policing,” he said. “A drone is a tool that helps accomplish the goals [police] already have. [To] do it better, safely and more efficiently.”

In terms of privacy, Lisberg says DJI advises departments to be upfront with the community on how and when the tech will and won’t be used.

Drones aren’t the only tech tools that police say have made them more efficient. More than 120 cities are using gunshot detection systems, which alert police to gunfire within the devices’ coverage area. The tech is provided by Fremont, Calif.-based ShotSpotter, which has been partnering with cities and police for 25 years.

The systems use sensors and algorithms that can identify and determine which loud bangs are probably gunshots. Within about 60 seconds, they can alert police to the precise location in which the gunshots were heard. That allows police to better deploy their resources, especially in cases where they may have had to cut back on neighborhood patrols, said Ron Teachman, ShotSpotter director of public safety solutions.

“Police chiefs are looking for innovative ways to deal with the responsibilities they have,” he said. “They’re finding ways to provide them even in areas where budgets are tight.”

“Tech can be a great tool for law enforcement to use [but] as with anything else, we have to balance the line of privacy and meeting the expectation to promote public safety.”

— Sgt. James Smallwood, treasurer of the Fraternal Order of Police working from Nashville

Douglas Griffith, president of the Houston Police Officers’ Union, said ShotSpotter has helped the Houston Police Department make more than 70 arrests as well as respond to gunshot victims faster. The department has 400 fewer officers than it did 24 years ago, yet they are still responsible for covering 671 square miles.

“We have to rely on tech because we don’t have the manpower sometimes,” Griffith said.

Police also have to consider what tech might be helpful to carry with them. Over the years that has evolved to include body cameras — which not only provide a video record of altercations but in some cases can provide automated reporting — license plate readers and laptops that help them document from the field, and less-lethal restraining devices.

Nelson said Mountain View is one of the first police departments in the Bay Area to start using a restraining device called the BolaWrap. The device, which discharges two lasso-like tethers to temporarily wrap up a person’s arms or legs, is expected to be a less harmful restraining device than a Taser. The department has about 25 of the devices, which have aided in situations like mental health crises when people may harm themselves, Nelson said.

And in some cases, tech that police adopt has the ability to integrate with personal technology that residents own. The Seattle Police Department, for example, uses tech and body cameras from Scottsdale, Ariz.-based Axon. Through Axon’s Citizen app, officers can send a resident a link to upload their own video or pictures, which then get tagged with the case number.

Similarly, some departments have turned to Coplogic, incident-reporting software developed by New York-based LexisNexis. Coplogic allows community members to submit their own crime reports for minor incidents, which helps free up police officers’ time.

Seattle police Sgt. Randy Huserik says it helps officers “streamline the process” of creating incident reports.

“We have to do the same amount of work with less bodies,” he said. “So obviously the integration of technology has the potential to enhance that.”

To be sure, not all of the technology is proving to be positive, says Griffith of Houston’s police union. He noted that while tech can add a level of efficiency, it also can can increase stress levels for officers, who have been experiencing increased scrutiny for excessive use of force and discriminatory practices in recent years. Body cameras, for example, can help police and the community better understand the details around an incident in which an officer resorted to use of force. But the cameras also can catch small, sometimes minor policy violations from police that don’t affect the overall outcome of any situation, such as whether a police officer buckled his seat belt before pressing the gas, Griffith said.

“We know that there will be more tech coming,” he said. “But we pray it’s something that will help [officers] and not make it to where they have to be perfect every minute of every day.”

Police also have to walk a fine line when it comes to implementing new technology, taking into account the community’s comfort level and privacy concerns, they say.

The New York Police Department learned that very quickly when it started using a robotic dog to help with surveillance and dangerous situations at the end of 2020. The 70-pound robot named Spot can climb stairs, traverse loose gravel and carry up to 30 pounds of equipment while using its built-in cameras to survey the area. After backlash over additional surveillance and use of police funds, the department ultimately moved to scrap its $94,000 contract with the device maker Boston Dynamics just a few months later.

Boston Dynamics said the cancellation of the program in New York “reinforced the importance of education and dialogue when introducing new technologies” and that the company continues to work on explaining Spot’s capabilities. “Spot most recently has been adopted by the St. Petersburg Police Department in Florida, which last month said it plans to use the robot dog for de-escalation efforts, to avoid the use of force, or in dangerous situations. The department also said the dog will only be deployed under the supervision of the Special Weapons and Tactics team or for fire rescue efforts.

Bernie Escalante, interim chief of the Santa Cruz Police Department in California, said that in communities like his, a human police officer will provide help when needed — a consideration the department takes into account when considering adopting tech.

“There’s definitely a role for [tech], but I also believe the community wants interaction and engagement with someone in uniform,” he said.

Some communities are actively trying to find the right balance. After first adopting the technology, Santa Cruz banned the use of predictive policing software, which uses algorithms to predict where crimes will most likely occur. Lawmakers in Boston, Alameda, Calif., and the state of Virginia are among those who took steps to limit the use of facial recognition by law enforcement agencies. Several California cities including Pasadena and San Jose have opted for more license plate readers to curb crime even amid pushback from organizations like the American Civil Liberties Union. And San Francisco is considering broadening government access to private cameras, which it curtailed in 2019.

Farhang Heydari, executive director of the nonprofit Policing Project at New York University School of Law, said he’s mostly concerned with increasing access to private cameras and third-party databases and the ability to tie them together, which could create a new kind of surveillance, he said.

That has the potential to magnify some of the harms of policing, like the overenforcement of low-level crime or the exacerbation of racial disparities. Ultimately, Heydari says, police shouldn’t be charged with deciding on their own what technology to use. Regulators and communities should, he said.

But as it stands, police departments are navigating tech through research, community input and via discussions with the cities they serve. Mountain View police say that in some respects, their location in the heart of Silicon Valley serves as an advantage to evaluating tech for the department.

“We have a sworn staff here with high-tech backgrounds,” said Sgt. Fernando Maldonado. “Just because someone comes in with tech doesn’t mean it applies to us or that it’s going to work. But we have that background [to understand it].”