The discussion about Salem's proposed Drones as First Responders program (DFR) during the June 11th City Council meeting lacked important context and focused entirely on the life-saving capabilities of drones. This article cuts through this spin and is the first in a series that examines the potential harms of this program.
What Is a Drones as First Responder Program?
First, let's define what a DFR program is. Here is how Chief Miller described the program during his testimony to the Salem City Council Committee on Administration and Finance on May 20th.
"The department already has a small drone program. But this would expand it and automate it. For instance an emergency call comes in, that call is geolocated using department software and the dispatcher simply presses a button. A drone is launched from a nearby rooftop and hovers over the location of that emergency call, giving us...that bird's eye view that we sometimes get from city cameras, but this would be available really to any outdoor incident."
How Is This Different From Salem's Current Drone Program?
The Salem Police Department already has two operational drones, but they are used under limited circumstances and flown by trained pilots.
In communities with DFR programs, drones are the front-line of policing. They are deployed routinely to respond to 911 calls, even for minor incidents.
The Salem Police Department will need to significantly expand the number of drones in their arsenal in order to meet this demand. These drones will also operate autonomously instead of being piloted remotely.
Based on his testimony, Chief Miller plans to have multiple drone launch pads throughout Salem, which is consistent with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) recommended guidelines for DFR programs. Whenever a 911 dispatcher requests a drone, AI-enabled software deploys the drone closest to the GPS coordinates of the caller. One of many questions I have about this proposed program is where these launch pads will be situated in Salem.
Salem Would Be the First In MA
Although Massachusetts municipalities have been using drones for years, none have yet adopted a DFR program. Lawrence, Revere and Worcester are in the early phases of exploring whether to implement such a program. In April, Haverhill Fire Department sent its members to training to learn more about DFR programs but they have not announced any concrete plans. Salem would be the first Massachusetts city to use automated drones to respond to 911 calls.
How Many Drones Will Salem Purchase?
An important detail that Chief Miller had neglected to mention during his testimony during the May 20th budget hearing is that the grant from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS)/Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) funding the DFR program will run for 3 years. I had missed this detail until I heard Councilor Smith mention it during the June 11th City Council meeting.
If you look up the DFR program in the Five Year Plan for the city's Capital Improvement Program, you will find that the Police is requesting $41,667 annually for fiscal years 2027 through 2029. (See page 245 of the FY27 budget.)
I had been under the impression that Chief Miller had planned to purchase 4 drones next year. I no longer stand by that number based on recent discussions I have had with City Councilors. So it is unclear how many police drones will be flying regularly in Salem by 2029.
Yes, Drones Can Save Lives
During the June 11th meeting, city councilors defended the DFR program by citing many life-saving applications for drones. I examine these potential applications below.
Medical Emergencies
Ward 2 Councilor Andrew Smith pointed out that drones can be used to deliver drugs (e.g., Narcan, EpiPens, insulin) and automated external defibrillators (AEDs) that bystanders can administer before Emergency Medical Services (EMS) arrive. I agree that drones could be indispensable during medical emergencies when every second counts.
FEMA and international aid organizations might be delivering medical equipment during natural disasters and humanitarian crises, but municipalities with DFR programs are not yet using drones to deliver medical aid during emergencies.
Clinical research into this use of drones is still ongoing. Last year, EMS responders began deploying AED-equipped drones for limited 911 calls in Forsyth County, North Carolina as part of a research study run by Duke Health and Duke Clinical Research Institute. In 2024, a similar pilot program was conduted in Manatee County, Florida. Last year police in Laredo, Texas began delivering Narcan via drone for drug overdoses. In general, though, municipalities have not yet started using drones to respond to medical emergencies.
Fire Emergencies
Although fire departments across the country have been using drones for years, these programs are not typically integrated with police-run DFR programs.
In 2024, Fremont, CA became the first city in the US (if not the world) to launch a joint police-fire DFR program. Unfortunately, their "transparency portal" stopped recording flights last June, so it is not clear whether the program is still operational.
This month Green Bay, WI and Newport News, VA both launched DFR programs that would be jointly used by their police and fire departments. However, this kind of interdepartmental collaboration is still rare nationally.
Furthermore, Salem is already using drones for limited firefighting applications. In his May 20th testimony, Chief Miller mentioned that our current drones were useful for search and rescue operations during last year's forest fires.
Other Public Safety Emergencies
Police often use the most extreme situations to justify the purchase of new surveillance technologies. This tactic was on full display during the June 11th City Council meeting.
Ward 1 Councilor Erin Turowski described a potential scenario conveyed to her by the Harbormaster Captain Bill McHugh in which pirates or terrorists hijack the Salem Ferry that runs Boston.
Councillor-at-Large Ty Hapworth pointed out that drones could be especially helpful during a school shooting, during which local roads would be clogged. I can easily imagine drones being indispensable during any mass-casualty incident, especially in October when over 1 million tourists visit our city.
But, we already have 2 drones that can be used for public safety emergencies. One of our drones is also small enough to fly inside buildings and can be used for hostage situations and bomb threats.
There are additional police uses for drones, such as tracking a suspect fleeing a scene, searching for missing people, documenting crime and accident scenes, and evaluating damage after a natural disaster. The question remains whether Salem needs a fleet of automated drones for these scenarios.
DFR Programs Mainly Use Drones for Minor Incidents Though
Cities with DFR programs use drones more often for minor incidents than the kind dramatic emergencies cited by City Councilors during the June 11th meeting. In his 2023 report on police drones for MIT Technology Review, Patrick Sisson wrote:
"Police departments like to share examples of daring and excitement: drones assisting officers in tracking down suspects, providing situational awareness during tense arrests, or helping to secure crime scenes. But drill down and ask about the real case for drones, and they’ll talk about the practical matter of clearing 911 calls."
In fact, one of the selling points used by manufacturers of DFR drones is that drones can replace human police units for many dispatch calls. Brinc claims its drones can resolve 1 in 3 cases on their own; Flock, 1 in 5.
In 2024, Wired analyzed nearly 10,000 drone flight records from July 2021 to September 2023, in Chula Vista, CA, which was the first US city to implement a DFR program. Although police drones were indeed used for serious emergencies, they were also used for calls involving loud music, vandalism, 'suspicious activity', public intoxication and shoplifting.
Sleepwalking Into a Surveillance State
There are many open questions regarding the Salem Police Department's plans for a DFR program, which I plan on outlining in an upcoming article. At a bare minimum, we need to understand when these drones will be used, what data they will collect, how long this data will be retained, and who will have access to this data.
In a 2023 white paper, ACLU Senior Policy Analyst Jay Stanley cautioned against "sleepwalking" into a surveillance state. He warns that the routine and pervasive presence of police drones in our skies can quickly lead to the functional equivalent aerial mass surveillance.
That is why the Salem City Council must enact privacy protections before approving any funding for the DFR program.
We need guardrails to ensure that drones do not record places where we can reasonably expect privacy (like backyards) or sensitive locations like schools, religious institutions, food pantries, and medical facilities. We need to ensure that drones are not used to regularly patrol Salem, particularly in low-income neighborhoods. We also do not want drones to fly over protests and other public gatherings, especially those involving historically marginalized communities.
Why Now?
This proposed DFR program comes at a time when crime is down significantly. In his annual state of the department report, Chief Miller reported that overall crime in Salem last year was down 11 percent compared to 2024. Violent crime in Salem was down 24 percent, more than twice the national reduction.
I encourage city leaders to think critically about why the Trump Administration is funding DFR programs across the country at a time when crime is low.
What strings are attached to this DHS/FEMA grant? Last month, moderate think tank Third Way reported that in 2025 the Department of Justice (DOJ) imposed ideological conditions on public safety grants to conform with the Trump Administration's white supremacist, transphobic, anti-vaccine agenda.
Our city solicitor should closely review the grant's contract and associated documentation to determine whether this program requires the Salem Police Department to collaborate with the federal government or otherwise act in a way that is inconsistent with Salem's values. Even if there are no current strings attached to this federal funding, the Trump Administration might impose some in the future.
We must also reflect upon how the Trump Admnistration stands to benefit from us growing accustomed to police drones regularly flying above our heads.
As city leaders evaluate whether to implement a DFR program, I hope they keep in mind Timothy Snyder's first rule in resisting authoritarianism from his book On Tyranny:
Do not obey in advance. Most of the power of authoritarianism is freely given. In times like these, individuals think ahead about what a more repressive government will want, and then offer themselves without being asked. A citizen who adapts in this way is teaching power what it can do.
Coming Up
Next in this series, I will examine troubling applications for police drones we must prevent and potential harms caused by DFR programs, particularly for Black and Brown people, immigrants, and transgender and non-binary people. Historically, surveillance technologies have disproportionately targeted Black and Brown people, which is why anytime a new police technology is proposed we must carefully consider its potential harms.
Further Reading
Jay Stanley
Dhruv Mehrotra and Jesse Marx
Anthony Kimery
David
