The Murrieta City Council last week approved a $750,000, three-year contract amendment with Flock Safety to bring the company’s Drone as First Responder (DFR) program to the city.
“This program will allow us to get a visual, not an officer on scene, but a visual of what’s going on on scene sooner rather than later,” Murrieta Police Department Chief Matthew Henry said at the October 7 meeting. “It gives our dispatch center, our officers and the fire department a real-time view of what’s going on, which allows us to gain some intelligence prior to our arrival.”
The city’s police department first launched its unmanned aerial systems program in October 2022, which Henry said had been successful in supporting containment searches, wildfire response, crime scene and traffic collision investigations and search and rescue operations among other public safety efforts.
“It was a progressive, forward-thinking idea that we ran with, and it’s giving us great success to this point,” he said. “Currently, we have a team consisting of one sergeant and five pilots.”
The department’s current drone fleet is fully trunk-deployed, meaning they are driven around in the trunks of police vehicles and launched upon request. With the DFR program, the drones would be deployed from centralized locations in response to emergency calls. Those proposed locations were Murrieta City Hall, Fire Station No. 3 and Fire Station No. 4.
A centralized Flock-branded radar system would also be installed to monitor the skies above the city for aerial traffic, allowing drone operations at higher altitudes than the Federal Aviation Administration typically allows, Capt. Jeremy Durrant said.
Durrant said the drones would better allow the department to assess a situation, determine if a police presence was needed, ensure the appropriate level of resources was being provided in response to the call and adjust the response accordingly to better serve the needs of the public and the department.
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“The program will turn uncertainty into clarity, allowing officers to see before they act, reduce unnecessary risk, enable smarter decision making and better protect both the first responders and the community that we serve,” he said. “One of DFRs benefits is enabling us to do more with what we already have in place, providing citywide coverage, faster service and safer operations without expanding payroll or fleet size.”
Durrant said every call would produce recorded video evidence that could be used to enhance training, follow-up reviews, transparency and both legal and ethical accountability. That would be in addition to the department’s existing policy for drone use, which includes sections on privacy concerns and prohibited uses, as well as state law, which requires the department to report on its drone usage annually, according to Durrant.
Other agencies in Riverside County utilizing a DFR program include the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department and police departments in Corona, Hemet, Riverside and Palm Springs, according to Henry.
The cost of the program, $150,000 for this year and $300,000 for each of the next two years, would be covered by Measure T funds. There was also a potential for a future $75,000 amendment to be approved by City Manager Justin Clifton if necessary, though Durrant said he did not anticipate needing it.
The program would be staffed through the reassignment of one sworn officer who would become a full-time DFR pilot with gaps in coverage staffed through ad hoc shifts as needed, according to Durrant.
“As we learn more about the needs of this program, we’ll continue to analyze the optimal staffing model and adjust as required,” he said.
Durrant said he expected the DFR program to be up and running within three to four months, with the drones being dispatched to as many calls as possible.
“We would take full advantage of the program and launch and report back what we’re seeing, because we don’t know without getting on scene whether it’s going to be valuable or not,” he said. “So we would like to be proactive and launch this on any relevant related call for service.”
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