Drone as First Responder: Changes in Policing, Changes in Prosecution
Drones are showing up on more 911 calls, which means prosecutors are seeing more drone evidence in more cases. In partnership with the National District Attorneys Association (NDAA), this session walks through a live Drone as First Responder (DFR) demo and the legal questions that come with it. Ryan Kao, Skydio Director of Public Safety Strategy and Legal Counsel and a former San Francisco prosecutor, and Colin Romberger, Skydio Solutions Engineering Manager, fly real missions from a rooftop dock in a cross-country demo. You'll watch a drone launch in three clicks, track a vehicle, clear a parking structure with thermal, search a wooded area, and upload evidence to evidence.com. Then the session covers how to analyze drone footage under the Fourth Amendment, defend against motions to suppress, and authenticate video at trial. The session closes with Q&A.
- It's with great pleasure that I introduce our speakers today,
- Ryan Cao and
- Colin Romberger from Skydio.
- I'm gonna stop sharing and turn that over to you guys.
- Great. Thank you, Carrie. Is this coming through?
- Yep.
- Great.
- So nice to talk to you guys. Um, looking forward to today's, uh, panel and,
- uh, presentation. So, uh, my name is Ryan Cao.
- I'm Director of Public Safety Strategy and Legal Counsel here at Skydio.
- Um, I was a prosecutor in the San Francisco
- DA's office, uh, for nine
- years, uh, from twenty thirteen to twenty twenty-two.
- Uh, in twenty twenty-two I joined the San
- Francisco Police Department as a Director
- of Crime Strategies, and that's how I kinda got involved in
- this whole kinda
- technology game, um, looking to use technology to
- transform the way we were, uh, fighting crime in San Francisco.
- Uh, DFR has been absolutely... and by DFR I mean Drone as First
- Responder, has been
- absolutely instrumental in the progress that we've made in San Francisco and
- in many other jurisdictions around the United States.
- Skydio is the leading provider of DFR for law enforcement, um, in the
- US, um, and we've, uh, got a lot of things
- that we're really excited to show
- off today. Um, and really interested to see, um, what
- prosecutors think about how this is gonna change, um, the criminal justice
- landscape. Um, I'm joined today by Colin Romberger,
- who is one of our
- solutions engineering managers here at Skydio.
- Uh, Colin, could you tell the group about, uh, your background a little bit?
- Absolutely, yeah. Thanks, Ryan, and, uh, great to meet everyone. Happy to be here.
- Um, so yeah, Colin Romberger, um, lead, uh, one of our, uh, solutions
- engineering teams, uh, here at Skydio.
- Um, been with Skydio for about six years, uh, but, uh, have been
- supporting public safety agencies, uh, as well as other entities, uh,
- around the United States, uh, and abroad, uh, with establishing, uh, small
- UAS programs, uh, for, for various use cases.
- But again, a, a primary focus on public safety for the
- past, uh,
- now it's going on 12 years at this point.
- Um, so, um, really, uh, have been honored to, uh, be a
- part of, uh, helping to establish a lot of those
- programs, uh, throughout the
- country, and, uh, happy to show you what, uh, Skydio has to offer, uh, today.
- So what we're gonna talk about today is, uh, we'll talk about current and future
- use of police drones. Essentially, what is DFR? What is Drone as First Responder?
- Um, and how is it different from drone
- programs before?
- Uh, we will have a tech demo that, uh, Colin is gonna lead for us.
- Uh, then we'll spend a lot of time talking
- about some of the Fourth Amendment
- considerations and, um, how we should approach getting this
- evidence
- into court and defending against motions to suppress and motions to set
- aside, um, or how to get it through grand jury,
- et cetera.
- Then we'll spend a little bit of time, um, on authentication and trial strategy.
- Um, and, uh, we'll close it out with some time for
- questions and answers at the
- end. Um, and then if questions and answers filter in
- and I'm able to get to them,
- it's kinda hard when, um, you're kind of looking at a screen.
- Um, but if you wanted to, uh, put the question in, I'm able to, uh, get
- to it, uh, in the middle. I'm happy to, uh, handle interruptions.
- So, uh, let's kick it off by talking about, um,
- comparing and contrasting
- traditional and current police drone use.
- So traditional police drone use, um, police drones have been
- around for, you know, probably easily ten years now.
- Um, they've primarily been used tactically for
- search warrants or plain closed
- abatement operations. Uh, it usually means that the pilot
- and visual observers
- are near the launch site. Um, and what this means is essentially like,
- let's
- say you're executing a search warrant at a house.
- Uh, you're gonna bring your search warrant
- team to the house, and they will have a
- drone with them in a suitcase or a backpack or something like that.
- And they will... the pilot will be there at the scene, uh,
- and they will pull
- the drone out, unfold the wings, launch it, and they will use it, um,
- while they're executing their search warrant.
- Um, it's typically, uh, used in concert with teams of officers.
- Um, your classic example is like, let's say you have,
- um, officers who are searching for someone who
- is, um,
- fled from them and is now, like hiding in a ravine
- or something like that.
- One officer would go and, you know, deploy the drone.
- But if the officer is sitting there looking at the
- controller, they've got their
- head buried in the controller, uh, they need a cover officer.
- So that's like you need a second officer now to protect the first officer who is
- focused solely on flying the drone safely and not crashing, uh, as well as
- locating the suspect. Now, if they see anything, then you're gonna
- need a third officer to go do something about it,
- and they're probably gonna need a
- cover officer as well. So you're essentially talking about a
- ratio of like four
- officers to one drone.
- Um, you often see them used as well in like
- crash reconstruction, where
- again, officer is bringing drone to scene, launching drone, um,
- and doing some work with it, all while the drone is within visual line of
- sight.
- In other words, the officer is able to, you know, with their eyeballs,
- see the drone in the air. It's essentially a flying camera
- that sticks close to the
- officer.
- The new trend is now Drone as First Responder, and this is kind of like an
- umbrella term that kinda... that describes, uh, the way off- the way
- police officers are using drones now, which is unmanned rooftop
- docks. In other words, they are like these barbecues that sit on your
- roof, uh, and they have drones that are autonomously launched and
- recovered from these docking stations without the need for a person to, uh,
- be present to, to launch or recover them. They're typically remotely operated.
- So if you have one location where the drone is launched from, you're gonna be
- flying the drone from another location, like in a real-time crime center, for
- example. And then you're gonna fly them to a third
- location.
- So drone launch site, drone pilot site, and where you
- send the drone are all three different locations.
- You're typically flying beyond visual line of sight, which means you can fly these
- things out for miles, uh, where, uh, the operator is no longer able to see the
- drone. Uh, and they're typically carrying more
- and more advanced optics and
- sensors. Uh, the big one that's mostly relevant to law
- enforcement is
- thermal. Um, and you're gonna see a lot more,
- uh, sworn and civilian pilots. So one of the big
- trends is, um, going toward a, like sworn-led civilian staffed
- model because officers are quite expensive Um, and you see a
- lot of, uh, skills, uh, necessary for drone piloting
- also be present and coming up in, um, other civilian professions as well.
- So that is relevant because, um, you know, sworn officers are
- professional witnesses, civilians aren't necessarily.
- Um, so that is another thing to keep an eye
- on.
- Uh, and ultimately, what this means is that drones will respond independently
- and
- in concert with other police officers at scale.
- The typical workflow is like, let's say there's a 911 call.
- We'll demonstrate this.
- Um, as officers are being, uh, dispatched to that call, a drone
- pilot is listening to the call and is launching a drone
- ahead of the officers and is trying...
- and is racing to get there first, and they often do get there first.
- And so we see this kind of switch from, like, officer drives with
- drone in the trunk, uh, to the scene changing to this kind of
- like citywide dispatch model where you're launching miniature aircraft,
- essentially a whole bunch of mini helicopters, um, all over your city.
- Um, reaching, uh, cri- reaching crime scenes
- or reaching emergency
- scenes, um, in two minutes or less is, is quite common.
- Uh, whereas like your A priority response
- is sometimes more like seven, eight or
- nine minutes.
- Looks a little bit something like this.
- Skydio Dock for X10.
- Station docked X10s where critical work happens.
- Get airborne in twenty seconds.
- Operate remotely from anywhere in the world and get the data you need to
- act.
- For public safety agencies, Skydio DFR Command is the ultimate
- software suite for drone operations.
- Respond to incidents with a single click.
- Share live video with ReadyLink
- and use augmented reality overlays for precise visual orientation.
- Manage your fleet, upload evidence, and build community trust.
- It's all at your command.
- So what does this mean for prosecutors?
- Uh, this means that you're gonna see more
- drones in more places and in more
- cases. Uh, it won't just be for special cases.
- Um, it will be for routine or mundane cases as well.
- Your average, um, nine one one response now
- may very well have a drone and in the future will likely you should
- expect to
- have a drone involved. Um, there's an increasing technology stack.
- A lot of these DFR and drone as first responder programs
- are being integrated into
- crime centers, so, uh, you see them integrated with
- ALPR, FUSIS, other types of camera systems.
- Um, you're gonna see, um, the drone, for example, have, uh,
- different integrations where, um, the information is being
- piped into the pilot and then is directly loaded into their cockpit
- and they're
- launching for that, for that purpose, as well as they're passing their drone
- feed
- to other, uh, locations as well. Um, you're gonna have
- to, uh, confront issues with night vision, uh, which is usually a huge benefit
- because you're able to see a lot more evidence, um, at night.
- And, um, as we know, a lot of crime happens at night.
- Uh, thermal is also a big aspect of that.
- Thermal is a very, very powerful night vision technology,
- but of course, there's
- Kylo. Uh, and then you're also gonna see more things
- with RTK or real-time
- kinematics, which is, um, f- which is a technology that's very useful
- for, uh, mapping things.
- Uh, more evidence, more problems. I think there was a, a song...
- I'm paraphrasing a song about that from the nineties.
- Um, and then, uh, the last big thing is, uh, pilots are completely
- remote from events that are captured on video.
- Uh, we're often used to saying like, "Hey, what'd you see?
- What happened next?" Um, that is not necessarily, um...
- sometimes that can break down a little bit when you're doing fully remote
- operations.
- Okay. So, uh, we're gonna have our first scenario now.
- Um, so Colin, do you want to grab the, um,
- screen share?
- Absolutely. Let me, uh, go ahead and do that.
- And let me know when we have the share going.
- I think we just need to maximize your screen.
- And then while you're getting set up, um, let me set the stage.
- So Officer Romberger works as a, uh, DFR pilot for
- the, uh, Skydio Police Department.
- And, um, Officer Romberger, uh, I would like to let you know
- that there has been a report of a suspicious vehicle, um, uh, on
- Clearview Way in San Mateo, California.
- Um, the caller reports that, uh, there's a black Audi, um, and
- that there's, um, an individual who seems to be loitering
- around the area, and
- he... and the caller reports that he may have seen a gun.
- Um, are you able to launch a DFR drone, uh, to that location?
- Yeah, absolutely. Uh, Ryan, let's go ahead. I...
- So I do see that suspicious, uh, vehicle call here in my, uh, list of
- incidents in, uh, DFR Command. So I can, uh, click into
- that and, uh, see the details. It looks like that black Audi A3 that you
- mentioned. Um, and, uh, we'll go ahead and get a drone there, uh,
- ASAP. So very easy and fast to do that.
- Um, I can go ahead and hit, uh, respond here.
- This, uh, next screen will show me the, the particular, um, docks and
- drones, uh, in the vicinity that I have available ordered by, uh,
- closest to furthest. I'm gonna go ahead and send, uh, this one,
- um, number twenty-two.
- Uh, so we'll go ahead and s- click there.
- And, uh, now the, uh, d- we're gonna bounce into the cockpit
- view and, uh, this will only take a few seconds to get
- up and running. Uh, and then we'll be able to go ahead and,
- uh, dispatch, uh,
- our vehicle right away.
- While you're, while you're doing that, um, the thing that I would like to
- mention, uh, as well is that this is a live demo.
- Uh, so, uh, I said Skydio Police Department on
- Clearview Way.
- This is, um, a, uh, live dock.
- Uh, this is done completely live. It is not simulated. It's not, uh, virtual.
- Uh, we have a whole bunch of these docks on
- our rooftop, and Colin is, uh...
- Where are you, where are you living right now, Colin?
- I'm actually in Pennsylvania, so this is a true, uh, cross-country
- remote demo, uh, for me.
- So Colin is flying from Pennsylvania, and, um,
- that's great. Thank you. So, um, what Colin has pulled up is a
- ready link. Um, let's get that ready link up so
- that, um, people can see what it would look like
- from an officer's point of view or
- a supervisor's point of view. So for the attendees on the call, um,
- if you have your cell phone and you scan that QR code,
- that will, um, allow you open kind of like a supervisor's
- view. Um, and you can see exactly from the pilot's
- point of view what
- he... what Colin is-- what Officer, Officer Romberger is seeing.
- Um, and the other great thing about it is that connects directly to the Skydio
- cloud. So, um, the video quality feed is actually
- much higher. Um, we actually... When you, when you stream
- the drone footage through like Zoom or any of the
- teleconferencing, um, teleconferencing, uh, platforms,
- the signal degrades a little bit. So if you wanna have, um, the
- authentic experience, um,
- fire up the QR code and look at it on your phone.
- Um, just-
- Yeah
- ... turn your phone sideways, um, and, uh, maximize, and you'll be able to see,
- um, just what Colin's seeing, and this is the
- ex- the experience that, um, police officers have in the field.
- Awesome. Uh, I'll go ahead and minimize that just so
- that I can regain
- control of the drone, and we can start looking for that, uh,
- suspicious
- vehicle. Um, looks like we do have a black
- car. I believe that's our black Audi.
- Um, I'm gonna go ahead and lock onto it, uh, using our subject
- tracking, uh, capability. And, uh, in this case, um,
- you know, I'm still manually flying, but what subject tracking will allow me to
- do is keep, uh, the, uh, the Audi center focus as I
- maneuver the drone, uh, and just makes the piloting experience
- very
- easy. All I'm doing at this point is pressing one button, uh, so that we can
- descend a little bit lower. Um, and it's keeping, uh, the, the car
- locked right in the center of the frame for us.
- So if I zoom in, um, does look like there may be something
- nefarious, uh, on our dashboard.
- [laughs] Um, I don't see
- anyone in the vehicle. Uh, although again, with, uh...
- because we are using that, uh, subject tracking, um, I can go
- ahead and maneuver over to the side, uh, and just, uh,
- drop down a little bit further and see if we can get, uh, a
- slightly better view, uh, in there.
- So there we go. Let's punch in a little bit closer.
- Yeah, looks like, uh, we are in fact
- looking at an empty vehicle.
- No occupants inside.
- And again, we can get this angle, you know, very low to the ground, um,
- because, you know, Skydio's, uh, uh, autonomous, uh,
- visual navigation capabilities, um, you know, it is constantly mapping the
- world around us using navigation cameras on the drone.
- So, um, obstacles, trees, um, telephone
- w-want-- lines, things like that, um, you know, the drone, even though the pilot
- may not be able to see that based on their view,
- they can stay focused on
- what is most important. Um, and the drone will navigate autonomously
- around, uh, any of those hazards.
- All right, Officer Romberger, I'm gonna pass that, um,
- information to the
- responding officers, and they do see your ready link feed.
- Um, can you drop a marker there and we'll let them know?
- Um, I'm getting some updates on, um, on the call, but officers
- will respond, and they will secure, um, that vehicle and make sure that
- firearm is, uh, secured for, uh, processing.
- Um, but Officer Romberger, I'm receiving another nine one one call.
- Um, apparently there's been a robbery nearby.
- It may be connected to our, um, suspicious vehicle.
- Um, someone has just called and reported that a man in a hoodie, um,
- pointed
- a gun at him and, um, stole his cell phone, and that man has
- run into a nearby parking structure.
- Are you able to see any, uh, nearby parking structures?
- I am. Uh, looks like we have the large parking
- structure here at Clearview
- Way. Uh, let's go over and, uh, take a peek and see what, uh,
- what we can see.
- And Colin, what's our current altitude right now?
- Right now we are flying at about seventy-five feet above the
- ground. Um, so... Or I'm sorry, about seventy-five feet above
- our takeoff location, approximately a-a hundred feet above the
- ground.
- But I'm actually gonna descend much lower now, uh, so that we
- can start to scan into, uh, the, the parking garage
- and, uh, see if we can see, uh, any suspicious
- individuals.
- So here we are. This is, uh, approximately thirty feet off the ground.
- Um, it is a little dark, uh, in the parking garage.
- Couple ways we could deal with that.
- Let's go ahead and take a look down at the next level.
- Um, in addition to the visual camera, we also have a thermal sensor
- on the Skydio X10, so that might actually give us a
- better idea. Uh, see a few vehicles that, uh, look like they've recently
- been moved, but, uh, nothing,
- um, [smacks lips] no people standing out yet.
- So let's go ahead and check the next level up.
- And for, um, attendees who are currently using the ready link on
- their cell
- phones, there's a button for you to toggle back
- and forth in the corner,
- uh, between, um, optical, in other words, the regular visual
- spectrum camera, the color camera, and, uh, thermal.
- And that is something that you can control independently in your
- own view.
- It doesn't interrupt what Officer Romberger is seeing.
- Yeah. So clearing the third floor right now.
- Still no sign of an individual.
- Go ahead and check, uh, this next level.
- Oh, it looks like we do have, uh, an individual here in this
- parking garage. Um, they must be bundled up quite a bit.
- Not seeing a,
- a huge thermal signature off of them, but that definitely looks like a
- suspicious
- individual.
- Yeah, I've never seen a more suspicious
- mannequin in my life.
- Um, I think, uh, I think we got our guy.
- So, um, we'll, we'll relay to the officers,
- and we'll pass them this
- feed. Um, it looks like our suspect is, um, just
- below the top deck. It looks like to be on the fifth floor,
- um,
- on the, uh, north corner. So congratulations, Officer Romburger.
- You can mark this one as a win. Uh, do you wanna return the drone to the dock,
- and
- we can show what the evidence upload process looks like?
- Absolutely. So very simple to recall the drone.
- We've got a button down here at the bottom, return and land in dock.
- I'm gonna go ahead and click that.
- And the X10's gonna go ahead and return to, uh, its docking station.
- Um, you can notice, uh, down in the, uh, bottom left-hand
- corner of the, uh, the pilot, uh, live feed view,
- uh, there is another camera down here.
- Uh, that is actually a camera from, uh, the dock.
- And, uh, um, this allows us to, uh, be able
- to see the dock's condition on the deck, uh, as the drone's coming into
- land, make sure that, you know, nothing blew on top of that, uh,
- surface, uh, you know, while the drone was in flight.
- Um, if it were- if it was unsafe to land, we do have safe landing z-
- uh, zones set up, um, nearby. Uh, in this case, everything is clear,
- so the drone is going to descend down.
- We can switch to that view, um, from the dock, see the touchdown.
- And, uh, here is our post-flight report, uh, that, uh, we can go ahead and fill
- out, um, while, uh, the, uh, the dock is closing up
- and, uh, putting the drone back into, uh, its standby state.
- Um, so you can notice because we did respond
- to an incident, uh, that
- incident, uh, for the, uh, suspicious vehicle has already been tagged
- here for us,
- uh, in the report. Um, that helps. That will link the record for this flight
- as
- well as any media, uh, that we would have captured, um, to the,
- uh,
- incident report, uh, when, uh, the files are uploaded to, uh,
- eviddence.com. Um, we can then also go through and, uh,
- uh, fill out, uh, the details about the type of incident.
- So this was a dispatch for a call for service.
- Um, did the drone get to the scene first? Yes, we did.
- Uh, did the drone clear the call without
- patrol resources?
- We, we were gonna call in, uh, patrol resources, uh, to, you know,
- obviously follow up on that, um, weapon that we saw, uh, in the
- vehicle and also, uh, you know, go question our suspicious
- individual. So, um, we're- I'm gonna say no.
- Uh, and, uh, was... How was the drone able to assist with the
- call?
- You know, we, we actually did quite a few things.
- So we located a person, uh, we located a vehicle, located an
- object. Um, we did not have-- We were not working in conjunction with other
- officers, uh, in the moment, so we weren't providing overwatch.
- Um, you know, a-again, we, um, we can say that if
- officers did come to make an arrest, uh, that we did, uh, assist in that
- process. And again, we've got the rest of these, uh,
- here as well.
- No other notes. Um, if there were additional lessons learned or,
- or hazard reports, this entire form is customizable, um, you know, by our
- agencies that use this product, so they can configure this, you know,
- however they
- like. Um, but then I can go ahead and hit Submit.
- And then, like I mentioned, at this point, uh, that will get tied to the incident
- record. Uh, and, uh, the evidence, uh, any video footage that
- we captured, um, is actually being uploaded right now,
- uh, and will automatically sync to, uh, eviddence.com.
- Great. Thank you. Um, turns out I'm getting another ph-
- I'm getting another
- call, Officer Romburger.
- Oh.
- Uh, there's an emergency. Um, there's a potential kidnapping,
- human trafficking
- case, uh, that's unfolding right now.
- And officers have, um,
- uh, done an emergency ping of the victim's
- phone, and they're getting a ping to a
- remote wooded area just south of, uh, your launch location.
- Um, can you, um, can you launch to go see
- if you can locate that cell phone that
- they're pinging?
- I can. In fact, I do see a missing person, uh, call for service, uh,
- here. Let's go ahead and get another drone over there, uh,
- on scene.
- Um, so I'm gonna go ahead. We'll use, uh, thirty-three this time.
- And how many clicks did it take you to launch this drone?
- So it is three total clicks. Uh, one for the incident, uh,
- one to, uh, um, say that we will respond, uh, and
- open up a, a flight deck, and then a third to, uh, launch the
- actual drone itself.
- While Colin's flying, uh, one of the things I wanna impress on the
- attendees and,
- and what makes DFR and drone as first responder so valuable
- to law
- enforcement is the ease and speed in which you are able to respond.
- Um, the, um, autonomy system, uh, on the drone
- allows the drone to take care of its own launch and recovery, essentially.
- Um, it also allows an operator to, uh, handle some of the really
- complex things. Uh, I'm gonna fire up my own Ready Link for
- this.
- Um,
- handle some of the really complex things of figuring out even, like, where to go
- and, like, how to get there while they're trying to process a lot of
- information
- that's coming at them. Um, so it's an incredibly, um, effective
- system that's been designed.
- Excellent. So we've arrived on scene.
- I did, uh, bring the Ready Link up again, uh, just so that, uh,
- everyone that's attending, if you wanna watch it on the Ready Link,
- you'll have the
- best viewing experience, um, as we explained
- earlier. Uh, I don't see-- I do see a clearing, uh,
- down here, Ryan. I do not see, uh, any signs
- of, uh, any individuals. I am gonna switch over to thermal
- here, uh, quickly and just scan, um-
- Again, no human, uh,
- looking targets, uh, down in this area.
- But let's go ahead and, uh, drop down a bit, and, uh, we'll,
- we'll take a
- closer look just to, just to be safe.
- Um, I'm gonna go ahead and maneuver over this, uh, clear area.
- Again, I don't have to be too precise.
- Um, you know, as we start dropping down, the drone is going to, you know,
- recognize the tree canopies like you could see right there, uh, start
- to make some adjustments to make sure that, uh,
- we don't have any issues with the
- obstacles. And now that we're down below the trees, I'm gonna
- continue to do another sweep,
- uh, see if we can see any evidence of, uh,
- individuals down here. Not sure what that is.
- Oh, no, that looks like a pole or a pipe that, uh,
- may have come down across the creek there.
- Officer Romberger, we'll, we'll report back to the officers that,
- um,
- the, the victim does not appear to be at the
- site of the phone ping.
- It's possible the suspect may have thrown the phone down the hill.
- Um, we'll have the officers focus their search
- in other locations and follow other
- leads to see if they can, um, prioritize that.
- Copy that.
- In fact, I'm getting a report now that we have a possible suspect,
- um, and, uh, officers are in pursuit.
- Um,
- let's see. Do we, do we see our suspect on foot?
- Uh, I see a individual on foot. I don't see any pursuing
- officers. Um, but, uh, we can certainly
- track onto that subject and take a closer look.
- Uh, looks like he's standing by a table
- and maybe doing something suspicious. Hard to tell.
- Um-
- And what-- And can you tell us what subject track is?
- Absolutely, yeah. So subject track, uh, is, uh, um, an
- autonomous, uh, method of being able to track, uh, human
- subjects, uh, or vehicles. Um, basically what we can do
- is, uh, identify the distinguishing
- characteristics, um,
- you know, of that, uh, um, object, you know, color, shape, etc.,
- uh, in the frame. Um, and then use that information so that as they
- start to move around, the camera, uh, either the camera will stay
- automatically focused, uh, and the drone will stay in place
- and basically
- rotate, uh, to keep, uh, the, the, uh, target, uh, in, in,
- uh, lock. Um, or if we wanna do, uh, follow, uh,
- we can, uh, go ahead and, uh, allow the drone to actually keep up.
- So if it was a vehicle, you know, uh, traveling down the road, the drone would
- actually travel with the vehicle and, and be able to maintain that, uh, visual
- contact.
- Yeah. Officer Romberger, officers are starting a pursuit of, um,
- of the suspect in
- a vehicle. Uh, can you, um, lock on to the, to the
- vehicle, um,
- and, uh, provide overwatch during the pursuit?
- Yes. In fact, I see a vehicle, uh, leaving right now.
- Let's go ahead and, uh, we'll go ahead and follow, uh, this
- individual.
- Oh, it looks like they're going right back
- into their spot, uh, so
- apparently I got the wrong one. Let's go ahead and, uh, find another, uh,
- vehicle that we can
- track.
- Uh, I imagine that, uh, this, uh,
- individual is probably heading to one of the busier traveled streets.
- So let's go ahead and, uh, take a look down here.
- Oh, I see a number of vehicles coming.
- Here's one. Go ahead and lock on.
- And you can see even, uh, going through a few disruptions, uh,
- with the
- trees, uh, we're able to, uh, predict, you know, where we can expect that
- vehicle to appear and, uh, continue that lock.
- Awesome.
- Um, well, officers will continue pursuing
- that vehicle, um,
- and, uh, we will, uh,
- get ahead of him, and we will, um, stop that vehicle.
- Excellent.
- Congratulations. Uh, great job assisting, um, that, uh, human trafficking
- case.
- Glad we could help. We'll go ahead and send, uh, the drone back to, uh,
- its docking station, uh, and we'll get the second report filled
- out.
- Cool.
- All right. Um, I think we're still on track for time.
- I'm gonna grab screen sharing back from you, if that's okay.
- Excellent.
- Let's see. Share screen.
- Okay, let's talk about...
- Am I back up? Looks like I'm back up.
- Let's talk about some of the Fourth Amendment implications.
- Um, and we can use some of those, um,
- scenarios as kind of like a discussion for, uh, or as a discussion point
- for, for the next framing of, um, how I think we can approach
- this. So,
- um, I'll start with kind of
- a three-part test that I'd like to suggest, um,
- as to how we kind of
- analyze the admissibility, um, of, uh, drone
- footage. Uh, and it, and it has three parts.
- One is essentially where the drone flies.
- Uh, this will be like aerial trespass on
- public or private property.
- A lot of people, when they start thinking about drones,
- and this is how I started
- thinking about it, was you're thinking about helicopters.
- Um, and you're thinking about, like, where you're actually positioning the
- vehicle.
- Uh, and by vehicle, I mean airframe.
- Like the-- like where the, where the drone is in the sky.
- Um, there is some analysis that we can do there.
- Then the next thing that we need to think about
- is what the drone sees.
- Essentially, this is like where the drone
- is looking at places that
- could have a reasonable expectation of privacy.
- Um, and this can include sense enhancement.
- And then the big one right now, which is, um, confronting mostly ALPR,
- um, is how you database the data. And are you, um,
- capturing the whole of a person's movements in public?
- Um, and between those three, that's kind of the three-part, um,
- analysis that we would do for drones.
- So let's start with, like, where the drone flies.
- So when we start with the initial, um, thought process regarding
- helicopters and aircraft, you know, we reach for the original, um,
- aerial observation cases, open fields doctrine, observation of
- curtilage by aircraft. Um, these are all like the marijuana cases from the
- '80s and
- '90s. Um, the big ones are California v.
- Ciralo in 1986. That was, uh, using a fixed wing at 1,000
- feet, um, and making a naked eye observation.
- Then Florida v. Riley was a helicopter around 400 feet in nine-
- 1989.
- Both of these were marijuana cases.
- Um, and there are a couple others like Dow
- Chemical and, and I think there's one
- other, but those are... Ciralo and, and Riley are probably the two most
- heavily
- cited ones. And the commonality for those was, um,
- well, there's no reasonable expectation of
- privacy in what can be
- observed in your curtilage, um, absent, you know, greater
- efforts to, uh, conceal your curtilage.
- Uh, and the commonality for that was the police were flying aircraft in a
- publicly
- navigable airspace. Uh, they were doing it in a physically
- non-intrusive manner,
- um, and officers were essentially no different than the
- public.
- Um, and so some people are like, "Great, then drones
- are aircraft, so I should be good," right?
- Because, um, especially when you think about like a hobbyist
- aircraft, like if you
- just go down to Best Buy and buy a drone, um, unless you're flying into
- restricted airspace, you can... and you're flying outside 400 feet,
- if you're just
- kind of zipping around, around the building, um,
- generally speaking,
- the public can do that. Um, and so if that's the case,
- then the officer should be
- able to do that too. Um, I don't think it's that simple.
- I don't think it's that reductive.
- Um, and I'm not sure that, um, drones
- are gonna be kind of like the touchstone for...
- uh, excuse me, the marijuana cases are gonna be the touchstone for, like,
- how DFR
- gets decided. Um,
- drones fly far lower than aircraft and are able to, and
- just see different things. As, as, uh, Colin was demonstrating from
- being able to kind of like scan the side of the parking garage searching for
- our suspect, a helicopter would not be able to do that.
- Um, and so if that, like, if that's not gonna
- be how it's decided... Now, to the extent like you
- are flying very high and you're
- kind of like simulating a helicopter, I think that probably is gonna be the,
- largely the end of the analysis unless you have a state law that's a little bit
- different, Florida being one of them.
- Um, but there's also another factor for it
- too, which is, you know,
- intrusion and aerial trespass. I mean, a lot of you are, I'm sure, familiar with
- United States v. Jones, which was our GPS tracker case.
- That was not decided on so-called mosaic theory or
- Carpenter r- um, type whole of persons movements.
- That was decided based on trespass theory.
- Um, there's another great case, Matter of United States, that
- was an all writs
- application, um, using a drone to search, um,
- a, um,
- yard and house, I believe. Um, and there's a very interesting discussion,
- um, in that case where, um, the district court was discussing,
- um... and I, I, I don't think we have time to kind of
- really rule proof it, but
- discussing that, you know, there's got to be at some point where,
- you know, you're
- flying low enough that you're interfering with, um,
- people's personal or property rights. And Florida v.
- Riley's dicta kind of like alludes to that, right?
- When they, when they talk about, um, how there's no reasonable expectation of
- privacy, um, in your curtilage to passing aircraft.
- Um, they also mentioned that the police use of the helicopter
- didn't
- create undue risk of noise, dust, or risk of injury.
- Um, it was not interfering... It was in the national airspace, and it
- was not
- interfering with, uh, the individual's property rights.
- And that, and that was a factor in it, um, I would think, although arguably it
- was dicta. So I think that's still relevant, um,
- for the
- analysis, and that's kind of like the first prong,
- at least like how,
- um, I think we should start thinking about how
- we square
- the, uh, aircraft cases, uh, for observation of
- marijuana with the new industry of drones, which doesn't have a
- lot of case law on it. That's one angle.
- Second angle is, uh, well, speaking of angles, is the
- shallower angle that you can get at lower altitudes.
- So, um, especially in urban environments, um, you're seeing
- drones fly usually below 400 feet, sometimes below 200
- feet. Um, you're also seeing buildings which
- are much higher than that, right?
- Y- Remember 10 feet is like roughly the story of a building,
- um, gen- generally. So like a four, like 400 squ-
- 400 feet would be like, let's, let's just round down,
- say like 30 stories.
- Uh, for a lot of downtown environments, you're flying drones alongside buildings.
- Uh, and this is a place where, um, helicopters and manned aviation
- don't fly, so it's unlocking potentially a new
- capability for police.
- And like, I have this blue arrow on the right side
- for like a lower structure next
- to some trees. If you're flying at 200 feet, you're g-
- you're gonna be able to look
- into a window that a helicopter would not be able to look into
- before. And so this is kind of where you start... I, I...
- You start realizing that it's not so much about the mechanism
- that you're making
- the observation by, it's actually more about what you're
- actually
- observing. So I think when we talk about drones
- and the new technology,
- uh, I was falling into this trap of just like,
- well, you know, the drone is
- special. I work for a drone company, obviously the drone is special. It...
- I sh- I need to be analyzing this about like how
- we're using the, like
- how we're using the drone to make the observation.
- And then I realized as I was thinking about it a little bit more,
- I'm like, wait,
- that may not be the right way to think about it because, you know, police
- have been using sense-enhancing technology to make observations for a very
- long time. I mean, just think about like basic narcotic
- spotting cases where you're
- like posted up on a rooftop with some binoculars.
- Um, and think about like pole cam cases and
- helicopter cases. And again, like yes, the way you ma- the way you, in which you
- make the observation matters, but more than anything else,
- it's almost from the
- perspective of what's, what's being observed, right?
- And ultimately, like where a person has exposed his
- conduct or property to public
- view by the naked eye, sense-enhancing devices can be used to
- observe from a more clandestine vantage point without constituting a search.
- Right? So, and they're spotting in binocular cases
- galore,
- and the real test that I've been talking about with a lot of
- officers is like,
- could a person in public have seen it with the naked eye?
- If that's the case, then you should be el- able to use a drone to make that
- same observation. Because if a person in public could have seen it
- with their
- naked eye, well, whether or not they've manifested a subjective re-
- uh,
- expectation of privacy, if it's in public, most people would say there's no
- reasonable expectation of privacy.
- That's, um, the case I have there is a, a California case, which is kind of like
- one of the most heavily cited cases, uh, for spotting.
- Um, but, um, the analysis in that th- that case was, um, I think very
- helpful and instructive, and I would bet you that there
- are a lot of,
- um, analogs in the other states as well to
- that case.
- Uh, and this is kind of like an illustration
- of like what I mean by the shallow
- angle or voyeuristic angle, depending on how you wanna,
- how you wanna describe it.
- Uh, this is a photo from, uh, my daughter's, uh, bedroom, which
- is facing a side yard with my neighbor.
- Um, yes, uh, I can kinda see my neighbor's window.
- He can kinda see mine. I have a side fence.
- But realistically, the only way you can, like, get a good view into her bedroom is
- if you are on... if you've, well, climbed onto my neighbor's roof,
- which I don't
- expect, uh, you have broken into my side yard,
- which is secured by a gate,
- which I would be very unhappy with you, or you slide a drone into that kinda
- narrow slice of sky, and you peek in there.
- Um, so yes, I can see the sky, but arguably, I think a lot of people
- would, um, back me up that I have a reasonable expectation
- that no one is gonna be peeking into her bedroom.
- Um, compare and contrast that with this fine individual who is,
- um, in a high-rise, uh, with all the lights on at night,
- and he's breaking
- out the windows. Uh, I used to live in San Francisco, and I,
- I would joke that, uh,
- well, I, it was a tiny box, a little one-bedroom in,
- in San Francisco in a, in a,
- in a high-rise. And, uh, you know, I would, I would joke,
- and I would explain that,
- like, uh, if you, if you have your lights on at night,
- um, you, your neighbors are seeing everything whether
- or not they want to or not.
- Um, and so arguably, there's no reasonable expectation of
- privacy there either.
- So, um, that would kind of be the
- overall, um, perspective that I would suggest,
- and I'm very interested in the dis-
- the discussion, uh, we can have, um, on that point.
- Regarding night vision, um, on some distance enhancement technology,
- um, California, um, generally, uh, doesn't really focus
- on night vision at all. Um, it's commonly available technology,
- and it's
- not X-ray vision. Um, it's just assisting seeing at night.
- And again, it's not so much the, the means of which you observe, um,
- it's what
- you're observing.
- Exceptions to that, of course, is thermal. Um, we've probably...
- most of us have probably read Kyllo v.
- United States, again, a marijuana case where they
- were using thermal
- to, um, look for hotspots and identify, um,
- uh, potential grow lamps. Um, and that's different because you are
- using thermal to ascertain intimate details of the interior of a house
- which would
- not be otherwise observable.
- Now, one of the things to call out is that today's thermal technology is very
- different. Um, it's much higher resolution,
- and it's not...
- You can-- Yes, you can see things that are, that are warm,
- but it's primarily being
- used as a night vision aid. Um, Colin was able to use it to essentially see in
- the
- dark, um, and that area would have been open to
- public view,
- um, anyway. So, um, we do see thermal being very, very
- common, um, and popular with law enforcement agencies.
- Uh, and it is different than the, than the way the thermal was being used
- and employed, and the technology has changed
- significantly from there as well.
- Um, but again, as long as you aren't, uh, ascertaining the intimate details of a,
- of a home, uh, without a warrant, um, then, uh, we
- should be pretty good.
- Um, I'm gonna try to pick up the pace a little
- bit, and we may cut, um, a little
- bit of content to make sure that we have enough time for questions.
- But the third component, right? So first we talked about, um, where the
- drone flies, what you've done with the drone itself.
- Uh, then two, we talked about like what the drone sees,
- and that,
- um, could be analyzed from the perspective of
- what is being observed.
- And then three is what I call the dreaded database.
- And, uh, we, we have Carpenter, which was, uh, the case
- that, um, really kind of changed a lot of things
- for, um,
- call detail record and, and tower dumping.
- Uh, we also recently just had Chatry, uh, come out expanding that for
- Google location history. Uh, and then, uh, another well-cited
- case is Leaders of a Beautiful Struggle v. Baltimore Police Department.
- That was an aerial observation case where, uh, Baltimore PD was
- flying a plane over all of Baltimore and, and photographing everything to try
- and, uh, be able to identify, um, drive-by
- shootings, um, and, and go back and try to identify the
- vehicles that have been involved with it.
- Um, and the, the, the base of it is, is that, um,
- when you're able to ascertain the whole of a person's movements in public without a
- warrant, you're gonna have a problem.
- Because the Supreme Court has recognized in Carpenter, they've reiterated that in
- Chatry, um, that there is a reasonable expectation of privacy
- in the whole of your movements. I see a
- chat come in. Uh, Rosie has a question
- potentially, but I will keep going and see if Rosie is able to ask that.
- Um,
- and, um,
- this is a video from San Francisco, um,
- and it related to an ALPR hit for a stolen
- vehicle. Um, and officers were able to respond to it.
- Uh, I don't know how many of you have seen a
- vehicle get cold plated in real time
- before. I had never seen that. Um, but they actually were able
- to, um, since they were following the, uh, suspect vehicle, they were actually
- able to watch him, uh, switch license plates.
- I've seen lots of cars with switched license plates, but I've never seen anyone
- actually do it. Um, and they were able to, um, spike the
- vehicle, um, and take them into custody, um,
- without any use of force.
- Uh,
- and what's really interesting that- About that for, for prosecutors is, um,
- there's kind of a shift toward real-time policing, um, instead
- of, um... Like, when you, when you go to ND- I was at NDAA in
- Boston, um, and I, I got to talk with a lot of
- people who, um, had other different technology solutions,
- and
- those are all great. I, like, I, I've used Cellebrite and, um,
- all the others, um, mag- a lot of the magnet technologies, um,
- when I was
- doing a lot of, um, organized crime stuff.
- Um, but now you see, like, this kind of real trend toward real-time
- policing, and
- people are getting caught red-handed.
- Um, you're no longer just building cases
- and going back in time.
- You're actually, uh, catching people, uh, in the act.
- Um, and, uh, I don't know what the breakdown, um,
- in my, in my career was like, but I, I remember only a fraction of
- people are getting caught, um,
- in the commission of the act or immediate, immediately after.
- When you get them, like, with the gun and you get them with the,
- the cell phone and
- you get them with the stolen property, it's incredibly powerful.
- Um, so breezing through a little bit to make
- sure we have time for
- questions. Uh, a little bit on trial strategy
- and authentication.
- So evidence management. Uh, we'll talk about that.
- Um, a little bit about authentication and exhibits.
- So, um, Colin mentioned that, um, one of our
- default integrations and one of the most important ones is with
- AxonsEvidence.com. A lot of you are familiar of course with their BWC.
- Um, I've used a lot of that, um, over the years and,
- uh, that's how we receive a lot of evidence
- from our police departments.
- Uh, so what we've done is we've built a first-party integration
- with Evidence.com
- so that when the drone lands, it automatically pulls the footage off the
- drone,
- uh, tags it and uploads it to Evidence.com.
- Uh, this means that it's gonna be, um, seamless in
- receiving your evidence and your case files in the same way
- that you receive BWC.
- Um, and it's really kind of like think about
- it like a virtual officer living in
- the drone, um, is responding to calls.
- Um, so that should be, um, the overall experience.
- Not everyone does it that way, but many agencies do.
- So, um, authentication. Uh, for
- authentication, I would say there are a couple of things to think about.
- I've been kind of suggesting, um, kind of like a four-tier approach.
- Uh, baseline is, um, treated just like it's BWC.
- You're gonna, you're, you're gonna authenticate it like it's a
- percipient witness
- in the video. Um,
- if the drone is responding and an officer is able to,
- uh, it shows up on scene and the drone is essentially filming the officer,
- uh, the officer who is present there should be able
- to authenticate the video and say, like, "Yes, that clearly and accurately depicts,
- uh, what happened on that day and time, and that's me in the video."
- Um, so that's kind of the easiest. Um, for me, I come from a preliminary
- hearing state. I'm always looking at, um, especially when I'm getting through
- preliminary hearing, limiting the number of officers
- that I have to call and the
- witnesses that I have to call. Um, and then that also leads into
- one of the other things that I'm very interested in developing
- with prosecutors'
- offices as well as police departments.
- Those are the California Evidence Code sections, um, for, um,
- public records and, uh, business records.
- Uh, and I think what a lot of police agencies
- have expressed some interested in
- but, interest in but we should, um, talk about that as a, um, way to
- collaborate with, um, prosecutors' offices
- and police departments is
- a custodian records or subpoena duces tecum system where,
- um,
- the prosecutor's office, uh, is able to issue an SDT
- to the drone program manager who is responsible for ensuring that the video
- is, uh, that the system is properly functioning, that the,
- um, that everything is working, um, as designed and that it's
- being uploaded and tagged appropriately, um, and that the records are being
- reproduced in the normal course of the operation of the system.
- Um, we've done-- I've done this for other types of police
- systems before.
- Um, in California, you just can't do that with incident reports.
- Um, they're testimonial. But for non-testimonial things, um,
- that has definitely
- been something we've been able to do, and it's, it's very convenient because you
- issue your subpoena and then, um, the video comes back to court and you've
- got your custodian dec-declaration, um, and you can put it in without a live
- witness. Very convenient. Prop one fifteen allows us in California
- to
- bypass one level of hearsay at preliminary hearings.
- If you have something similar, that could be another way to do it.
- Uh, the analogy is like, let's say you're calling a criminalist,
- um, and you are
- at, at a preliminary hearing or a grand jury.
- Um, well, grand jury you can't use as much hearsay.
- But, um, let's say, uh, you have a mechanism by which you can
- introduce criminalist technology, uh, criminalist testimo- uh, testimony.
- That could be another analogy to use for pilots.
- And then of course, don't be afraid to call your drone pilot
- live, especially for
- serious cases or, um, you know, if the drone pilot, um,
- saw or directed police action. You may just wanna call your drone pilot.
- The only reason why I bring this up is because, um,
- if your default reaction is to
- always call your drone pilot, um, if your drone pilot
- is flying a bunch of missions
- a day, um, and you pull them into court, that means that they're not working other
- cases, um, and they could be, um, taken offline for a
- signi-significant amount of time, which is, um, inconvenient for
- the police agency, and that means that you don't have as much pilot access
- for
- your cases, uh, because DFR technology is very strong for,
- um, making these cases. Um, calling your drone
- pilot. So some of the other considerations,
- do you know who your pilot is?
- Some places it's a little bit hard to tell because they use call signs, so just
- make sure that you are, um, very clear as to which pilot is which.
- Sometimes there are multiple pilots.
- Um, especially now that we are, um, pioneering multi-drone operations, you may
- have one pilot controlling multiple drones simultaneously.
- You may have multiple pilots jumping in and out of a call.
- Um, we've built a new operation system where
- multiple pilots and ground assets can
- all respond kind of together. Um, the pilot's behind a terminal.
- They're not at the scene, so they are not a percipient witness.
- Um,
- did the pilot see something that others didn't?
- Sometimes, uh, the pilot is, is seeing something, um, where, you know,
- despite, you know, the best evidence rule, they, the person has thrown something
- and the officer, um- Says like, "Hey, like I observed this and this is what it
- meant to me, and this is why it's important for the case."
- Or did the pilot direct
- police action? Um, the one thing, um,
- underlying all of this, and I've been kind of mentioning about the
- autonomy and
- how easy it is, um, is that establishing specialized skill
- or training should not
- be necessary. You should not need to qualify your drone
- pilots as expert witnesses.
- Um, as a quick aside, I flew a drone for the first time,
- any drone for the
- first time in my job interview at Skydio.
- Uh, I didn't have any prior training.
- They threw me on the drone, and they said, "Try to crash it."
- I was not able to crash it. Um, and um, so [laughs]
- that was, uh, that was a pretty, uh, eye-opening experience for me
- that literally no specialized skill training or experience
- is necessary for that.
- Uh, last couple things. Um, we are also seeing a
- lot more, um, people using drones for crime scene
- reconstruction and, um, three-D modeling.
- Um, and this is an exhibit I produced for a
- DA's
- office on a, um,
- on a felony murder case. Uh, also a Watson murder for,
- um, driving under the influence, um, causing death.
- And, uh, we, we produced this as a demonstrative for,
- for the
- DA's office, um, basically because the guy took off on the
- cops.
- They lit him up. He was high on meth. He had warrants, and so he ran off.
- Uh, they terminated the pursuit, but he was doing ninety miles an hour
- through the
- street, um, before he went through the intersection,
- uh, and, uh, T-boned a minivan with a family inside,
- killing
- two young kids and, uh, critically injuring the mother and, and
- one other child. Um, and they had to stitch together his route
- through snippets of, like through, you know, wreckage along the
- way as, as well as like surveillance cameras
- that capture him blowing
- past the camera. And so they, they were able to breadcrumb his route,
- and they kind
- of knew where he went. So what we did is we went and flew over this
- route, um, that the DA's office, uh, would lay a foundation
- for. Um, and this is essentially the route
- that the guy took.
- Um, and it culminates in us, uh, circling the crash
- scene. And, uh, this is a very, uh, powerful
- demonstrative. Um, even though it did...
- You know, it's not a reconstruction that happened on the night of, um,
- it really
- kinda gives you a perspective on what went into,
- um, this guy's driving and, uh, what he did.
- Um, because it's very,
- uh, very effective for proving state of mind,
- um, for this type
- of case.
- So we still have a couple minutes left. I'll throw this up.
- This is my contact information. Um, and, um,
- I'd love to hear from you. Um, I also have a,
- uh, broader CLE that I teach. I've, I've taught it to a number of DA's
- offices. Um, I think there's a great opportunity for
- police and
- prosecutors to work together on this very important technology.
- Um, but, um, yeah, feel free to reach out.
- I'm very interested in, in learning more, uh, on your perspectives in,
- in, in your states and the way that you guys operate.
- And this is a developing area of the law. It's a developing area of policing.
- Um, and I think the more we talk about it, uh, from a prosecutor's perspective, the
- better it's gonna be for all of us. So, uh, that
- concludes the presentation. Let me see if there are any questions.
- Let's see. If you have any questions,
- um, please throw it in the chat or send me a message.
- I don't see anything in the chat. Rosie, we saw
- that you'd raised a hand. If you're still on,
- if you have a question, feel free to
- put that in the chat, and we'd be happy to get
- that answered for you.
- Nothing there.
- Nope. All right. Oh.
- Oh, [laughs] that's okay, Rosie. It was an accident.
- [laughs] All right. Well, um, thanks
- again, Ryan, Colin. We really appreciate you guys being with
- us today.
- Um, again, if anybody has questions or needs to get in touch
- and didn't get Ryan's
- or Colin's email address down, you can always reach out to us at
- training@ndaajustice.org.
- Great. Well, thank, um-
- Anything else, Ryan?
- Yep. Thank you very much to the NDAA for
- hosting us.
- Um,
- uh, I really enjoyed the experience, and I, I look forward to working with NDAA
- and, uh, more prosecutors around the US.
- And thanks very much, uh, Officer Romberger, for the,
- for the very effective
- demonstration.
- [laughs]
- Anytime. My pleasure. Thanks, everyone. Appreciate it.
- Thank you.
- Thank you.
- Bye-bye.
Watch Time
53 Mins 7 Secs
Related Webinars
Faster Response, Safer Campus: How DFR is Changing University Policing
Watch webinar
How DFR is driving San Francisco’s drop in auto theft and larceny
Watch webinar
DFR Outcomes Save Time, Money, Resources, Lives
Watch webinar