Lieutenant Tim Fecht remembers the collective sigh of relief echoing through the real time crime center one night on the first floor of the Dunwoody Police Department. It happened a few weeks ago, after a suspicious person call came in at one of the hotels in the buzzing metro Atlanta city.
Several officers responded, and the incident quickly escalated into a tussle. The patrol supervisor called for a 10-3, the police code to stop all non-emergency radio traffic.
But Fecht, who serves as a night shift commander in the 68-officer agency and oversees technology integration, had launched the department’s new first responder drone to surveil the scene. The images transmitted in real time showed his colleagues taking the man into custody. No one seemed to have suffered any injuries.
“It was reassuring to see that our officers got it under control,” said Fecht. “To know that everybody was safe, that we didn’t need to send additional units, and we could allow radio traffic to go back to normal.”
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Drone as First Responder programs expand across U.S. police departments
Dunwoody is one of the latest U.S. police departments to adopt a Drone as First Responder (DFR) program to support everyday policing.
According to the Electronic Frontier Foundation, about 1,500 police departments across the country use drones to help clear buildings, assist with crowd control or provide surveillance during SWAT callouts. Larger departments like New York City and Denver have implemented DFR programs, but smaller and medium-sized agencies lead the way.
Chula Vista, south of San Diego, California, was the first police department to officially launch a DFR program in 2018. Dunwoody got inspired in part by one of its neighboring jurisdictions. The Brookhaven Police Department, a 95-officer agency in metro Atlanta, was among the first on the East Coast to start a DFR program in April 2021.
Dunwoody launched its pilot program in January. The department opted for an M350 drone manufactured by Flock Aerodome, the new aviation sector of Flock, the Atlanta-based public safety technology company.
The M350 drone can climb about 400 feet, reach speeds up to 55 miles per hour and stay airborne for up to 45 minutes.
It complements other Flock Safety technologies used by Dunwoody police, such as license plate readers, video cameras and gunshot detection devices, said Deputy Chief Oliver Fladrich. The department also uses Flock OS, an information and intelligence platform that seamlessly integrates data from various sources.
“Dunwoody police have been a beta testing site for many of Flock’s programs,” said Fladrich. “And it doesn’t hurt that maintenance is right around the corner.”
In April, Flock opened a new 97,000-square-foot drone manufacturing facility in Smyrna, another northern Atlanta suburb.
Dunwoody’s drone — operated by one of 12 employees who hold a Part 107 remote pilot license issued by the FAA — takes off from the roof at Dunwoody City Hall, where the police department is headquartered. Just recently, the department had a radar terrain and aircraft avoidance system installed and is expecting FAA approval. The system would allow the drone to be deployed almost anytime, anywhere, weather permitting, Fladrich explained.
With the radar in place, the combination of drone, license plate readers and cameras will be “an amazing force multiplier,” he said.
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How drones reduce police response times and improve officer safety
The drone serves as a true first responder, Fladrich added. It will complement, not replace, traditional response methods by providing a rapid aerial view and an extra eye on the scene.
Deploying the drone significantly reduces response times, which can be critical for small jurisdictions. Dunwoody stretches over 13 square miles and has a population of 52,000. It is situated off I-285, a main traffic artery around Atlanta, and is home to several corporate offices, convention hotels and one of the largest shopping malls in metro Atlanta. The high daytime population is a magnet for property and organized crime.
“We’ve got to be on it really fast, or the suspects are out of our jurisdiction,” said Kayce Lowe, the department’s crime and intelligence analyst and real-time crime center manager.
For example, it takes the drone about 30 seconds to fly from police headquarters to the mall, said Lowe. In comparison, “with all the traffic in the city, it would take our patrol cars several minutes to get there,” she said.
The drone can also provide critical information even before officers arrive on the scene, boosting their situational awareness and making their response more efficient, added Fecht — and as a result, increasing safety for officers, bystanders and suspects.
“Use of force often comes from walking into an unknown and having to escalate quickly,” said Fecht. Drone footage provides additional intel to officers, he said, “and that helps us decipher the situation and be more appropriate in our response.”
An incident that happened in Dunwoody in the spring exemplifies the multiple and interconnected benefits offered by the DFR program. A neighboring agency alerted Dunwoody police about an armed suspect who appeared to be in a mental health crisis and had left their jurisdiction. With the help of license plate readers, Dunwoody police were able to quickly identify the suspect’s vehicle and locate it at a parking deck.
Crime analyst Kayce Lowe ran the intel in the real-time crime center that day and launched the drone to search the area. As she looked at the suspect’s driver’s license photo, she noticed a particular tattoo on the man’s neck. When the drone zoomed in to capture people in the crowd matching the description of the suspect, “I recognized the tattoo on the neck of the guy on the screen,” she said.
Lowe and her colleagues were also able to determine that the suspect was holding a cellphone in his hand, not a gun.
The information was relayed to officers before they arrived on the scene. They coordinated the response, calmly approached the suspect and took him into custody while keeping the incident low-key and minimizing the risk for everyone around. All this happened within an hour of the initial BOLO alert.
The DFR program also helps speed up criminal investigations by “getting all the puzzle pieces together in a timely manner,” said Detective Jordan Laverty*, who is assigned to Dunwoody’s criminal investigations division.
For example, the drone works in concert with gunshot detection devices that can alert police to a shooting even when there’s no 911 call. The drone can preview the scene, and police can send paramedics to tend to potential victims or send out crime scene investigators to collect evidence, like shell casings, Laverty explained.
Using drones for disaster response, traffic incidents and resource management
Another benefit of the DFR program is traffic control and disaster response, said Fladrich. Drones can provide an initial assessment of a car accident, assist during vehicle pursuits and direct first responders in post-storm or post-flood management.
For smaller departments like Dunwoody, using a drone as a first responder can also help manage limited resources, especially in a time when law enforcement is still struggling to fill the ranks.
Drones can make it easier for patrol commanders to decide if backup is needed, a situation doesn’t require physical police presence or has been resolved, said Fecht — hence maximizing officers’ time and productivity. He remembers a recent call about a hazard in the middle of the interstate. A drone was launched and found the hazard — which turned out to be a tire — had been removed, so units en route were canceled, “and we could send them to where they were needed more urgently.”
Addressing community concerns about police drone use and privacy
But DFR programs have also come under intense criticism nationwide — from residents concerned about privacy violations and from advocacy organizations like the American Civil Liberties Union for potential over-surveillance.
The best answer to these concerns is transparency and education, said Fecht. Dunwoody police plan to publish the number and routes of DFR flights on the city’s transparency page in the next few months, along with data from license plate readers.
Much of the concern can be mitigated by explaining what the technology is meant to achieve and how police are using it, said Fecht. Dunwoody regularly invites citizen groups to take tours of the real time crime center.
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“Once people see how busy we are, they typically understand that we don’t have the time to look at cameras all day long,” he said. “And that the use of these technologies is reserved for critical incidents.”
Proactively communicating the role of drones in policing can even bolster community relations, notes an April 2025 report published by the International Association of Chiefs of Police, or IACP. “Drones provide a visual story of events as they unfold, and thorough digital documentation helps improve community trust in law enforcement’s decision making,” the report says.
Drone platforms, especially Drones as First Responder programs, are rapidly evolving and improving, said Fladrich, as artificial intelligence becomes further integrated. Future applications could include drones that self-launch once a call comes in and provide critical intel without human interaction.
“This could potentially reduce the number of car chases that are dangerous for everyone involved,” he said.
The future of AI-powered drones in policing and patrol operations
Another future application could be small drone docking stations that create a network through the entire metro area. Already, drone operators can allow partnering agencies to access their drone footage, whether it’s during a high-intensity, multi-jurisdictional response or a joint investigation. Data sharing is also a reality with license plate readers.
Going forward, DFR programs could be flawlessly interconnected, where “our drone would take off, land in another city, then theirs would take off, and so forth,” said Fecht. “They could piggyback off of each other and act like a swarm” — taking mutual aid to a new level.
Analyst Kayce Lowe has no doubt AI-infused drone technology will make information gathering and application “much more precise and a lot faster.” But no matter how much AI may help with collecting, contextualizing and comprehending intelligence, she said she sticks with the first rule of every crime and data analyst: “Verify. Always.”
*On July 29, a few weeks after our interview, Detective Jordan Laverty passed away unexpectedly, according to the Dunwoody Police Department.
