More blue cities using drones for some 911 calls, expert says: 'They can't get cops'

Quick, efficient and with a bird's eye view of any scene, more police departments are embracing the use of drones to carry out law enforcement work, with some blue cities now even using them to respond to 911 calls. Around 1,500 police departments across the country are currently using drones in some form, according to a report by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a digital privacy group, with agencies deploying the technology for crowd control purposes, missing people searches, tracking fleeing suspects or mapping crime scenes. Steep budget cuts and dwindling staff numbers in blue cities, in particular, make drones both an effective and cost-saving tool for police in Democratic strongholds. A law enforcement official sets up a drone during a manhunt for suspect Robert Card following a mass shooting on Oct. 27, 2023, in Monmouth, Maine. Today's police drones are much bigger than regular drones commonly used for recreational purposes, with much longer battery lives and features such as thermal sensors, loudspeakers, spotlights or beacons.