By Phil Diehl
The San Diego Union-Tribune
OCEANSIDE, Calif. — Oceanside has a approved a five-year, $682,556 contract with Axon Enterprise, Inc., to provide two first-responder police drones, extending and expanding a 13-month trial program launched in August 2025.
A single remotely operated aerial drone responded to emergency calls about 1,300 times from its base atop the downtown City Hall building during the trial, said police Capt. Nick Nuñez.
The drone covered only the western half of the city and was on-scene before officers arrived more than 1,000 times, he said, and it eliminated the need for officers to respond in about 400 of the less important calls.
“We feel this trial period has been extremely successful for us,” Nuñez said, in a Sept. 16 presentation to the Oceanside City Council.
“Drone pilots have located missing persons, assisted lifeguards with water rescues, located stolen vehicles, and have been able to provide responding units with the direction of travel when suspects were fleeing the scenes of crimes,” Nuñez said.
No one from the public addressed the proposal. The City Council voted 4-0, with Councilmember Peter Weiss absent, to approve the contract.
The trial program used the services of Flying Lion, Inc., a private contractor, to supplement the Police Department’s staffing and provide a dedicated visual observer. The expanded program with Axon adds a second first-responder drone to be launched from a yet-to-be-determined location in the eastern half of the city.
Axon also provides the body-worn cameras used by Oceanside and many other law enforcement agencies nationwide.
Councilmember Eric Joyce asked the only questions about the program’s expansion, focusing on whether the drones would be used for police work other than emergency calls for service.
The department has different drones that can be used by officers in the field for most non-emergency needs such as executing search warrants, police said.
In some cases the first-responder drones could be used to assist an officer on a call, Nuñez said. For example, the aerial camera could be requested by an officer during a traffic stop to locate a suspect who ran from the vehicle.
Police Chief Taurino Valdovinos, in a pre-recorded video, said the city has strict policies for who uses the drones, how and when, and access to the video.
“The drone is controlled at all times by a sworn, tenured police officer who is also an FAA certified remote pilot,” Valdovinos said. “In many cases the drone arrives before an officer and gives our responding officers real-time information about what’s actually happening.”
Drones are not used for routine patrols and do not loiter over neighborhoods once a call is resolved, the police chief said. Also, they are not intended to replace police officers at crime scenes.
“Our drones are not and will never be armed,” Valdovinos said.
Operators take “reasonable precautions” to protect privacy such as deactivating the drone’s camera or turning it away to avoid inadvertently recording some areas, he said.
“They do not fly random patrols or watch your everyday activies,” he said. “Our drone cameras point to the horizon as they respond to calls for service to avoid capturing normal activity. Every flight is tied to a specific call.”
Response times for top priority calls has been reduced from about 4 minutes to about 2 minutes where first-responder drones are used, he said, a 50% reduction.
Each flight and the reason for it is logged on a public web page, he said.
The video is treated like any other evidence, he said. It is encrypted and access is tightly controlled. Footage is never shared with outside agencies and never used for immigration matters.
In addition to the five-year contract, first-year costs of $99,224 will be charged to the Police Department’s investigations account, according to a staff report. Recurring costs of $145,833 in each of the subsequent four years include fees for training, service, and hardware.
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