One year in, Cincinnati PD's DFR program gets officers on scene in two minutes
One year into launching its Drone as First Responder program, the Cincinnati Police Department is responding to calls for service faster and with more information. "It changes how we respond, it changes how we send resources, and it's made everybody safer," said Sgt. Jay Kemme, who leads the program. With 22 drones covering about 90% of the city, officers now reach some calls in two to three minutes, down from 20, guided by real-time video. The program has logged nearly 11,000 responses, with about 24% resolved without an officer needing to respond at all.
- [siren] July 2025, the
- Cincinnati Police Department launches its own comprehensive drone
- program-
- [radio chatter]
- ... giving officers eyes in the sky to keep
- the community safe.
- We're very excited to officially announce the launch
- of the Cincinnati Police Department's newest and most
- innovative public safety initiative,
- drones as first responders.
- Now, one year into the program...
- [drone buzzing]
- We had expectations, um, and we weren't sure what to
- expect.
- CPD is pulling back the curtain on the operation, giving Local
- 12 an exclusive look at the results.
- What we have found is this has exceeded all of our
- expectations.
- Sergeant Jay Kemme has been at the helm-
- Yeah
- ... piloting this pilot program from the
- start.
- I think it has, uh,
- absolutely changed the way that law enforcement responds to runs.
- When a citizen calls for help and a drone is there in a minute or two
- minutes and is giving that real-time feedback to the officers,
- it changes how we respond. It changes how we send
- resources. It changes everything, and it's made everybody safer.
- [drone buzzing] So with the 22 drones, we cover about
- 90% of the city. Um, we can respond almost anywhere and have
- eyes on within two minutes.
- And this command center is where it all happens.
- At its peak, it's chaos. You're tracking suspects.
- You're watching victims and making sure they're safe,
- and we're coordinating with
- real-time crime next door, so we're yelling back and forth.
- So it can get very loud and very chaotic in here very quick.
- So Ben's on a, uh, call for juveniles fighting down in the
- West End. So we can respond, um, with
- the drone. We can say to the responding officers,
- one, we can live
- stream it back to them, right? So they can see what we're seeing in real
- time.
- Um, more importantly, we can get here and say, "Hey, it's two guys
- fighting," or, "Hey, there's 50 people fighting," or, "Hey,
- there's a crowd
- forming," or, "Hey, there's a gun, a knife." Right?
- So just the situational awareness that we can provide on a run like
- this.
- In this case, the scene is already clear, so no officers are needed in
- response, saving valuable time and resources for the department.
- But that's not always the case.
- A week or two ago, we had a shooting, and the drone was there
- within 30 seconds. The shooting happened to be close to where
- the dock was
- stationed, and our officer caught a guy coming out of
- an apartment with an
- AR-15. Uh, we were able to track him.
- He changed his clothes. We were able to track him through
- neighborhoods, through
- the woods, and ultimately arrest him for shooting a
- female in the stomach.
- Of the nearly 11,000 drone responses since the project's
- inception, a little more than 2,600 of those calls
- did not
- require additional police presence.
- That's about 24%, effectively saving the department from
- wasting resources a quarter of the time.
- So if you imagine, um, we get a mattress on the highway, right?
- And somebody calls that in, and we send a drone out.
- So the drone goes.
- We find it, and we have cops there within, I don't know, two minutes,
- three minutes, and we tell them exactly where it is,
- right?
- So we cut down that response time for that run from 20 minutes to
- two minutes.
- And with the hot-button issue of flock cameras taking center
- stage in many local communities, CPD wants residents to know
- these drones provide a much different service.
- This is calls for service, so this is a citizen is calling, "Hey,
- I need help." We are launching a drone to help them.
- This is making them safer. Uh, it's making the police
- department more effective. It's making our responses smarter,
- and it's been an incredible program that has really changed the way we do a
- lot of
- things.
- Where would you rank this drone program with others in the country?
- Oh, I, I'm biased, but I think we're tops in the country.
- [drone buzzing]
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4 Mins 3 Secs