LAPD is using drones more than ever to watch crowds during protests and respond to calls

This story first appeared on The LA Local.

The LAPD has sharply accelerated its use of drones in policing, including deploying them to protests in the city to survey crowds.

The department conducted 3,030 drone flights to support various calls for police service and 480 for high-risk operations from June through December 2025, according to a presentation provided to the L.A. Board of Police Commissioners Tuesday.

Detective Michael Hackman, manager of the department’s Small Unmanned Aircraft Systems program, told the commissioners that the department has already surpassed that number of flights in the first four months of 2026, indicating LAPD has accelerated the program’s use significantly.

The report comes as activists and media have questioned the department’s use of drones during recent protests against federal immigration enforcement.

The Intercept reported last week that a public portal tracking drone flight data captured the department conducting more than 30 drone flights during the Jan. 31 ICE Out protest in downtown. About the same number of flights were documented during the March 28 No Kings protest. 

Several people at the commission meeting and on social media have made similar statements about seeing drone activity at protests. Some have called on the department to restrict its use of various surveillance technologies, including drones, saying they can be used to identify people vulnerable to the federal government’s immigration enforcement activities. 

“Would you acknowledge that there are concerns in the community regarding privacy issues and whether the drones are used to record activity for the purpose of identifying participants?” Commissioner Teresa Sánchez-Gordon asked on Tuesday.

Hackman responded that the drones flying over peaceful protests aimed to provide the LAPD with “crowd awareness, crowd behavior assessments and crowd size assessments.”

“We’re not interested in recording or filming my face to try and later identify me,” he said.

Hackman added that one of the drone flights at the March 28 protest was in response to a report of a person possibly throwing objects at people and police.

The department’s drone policy states officers cannot use drones to record or photograph “First Amendment assemblies for the purpose of identifying participants not engaged in unlawful conduct.” And Hackman reiterated to the commissioners that the department did not record anyone who was not suspected of any crime, though he did not say if the March 28 drone flight recorded members of the crowd.

Hackman added that the drones operate in much the same way that the department has used police lookouts and helicopters to watch crowds in the past. 

The LAPD launched its Drone as First Responder pilot program last summer, which it said aimed to test deploying unmanned aircraft to calls for service before police officers could arrive. The drones have video and recording capabilities, and LAPD has said they are used to survey scenes to see if people are armed, or if police don’t need to respond at all. That pilot program was later made permanent, and a more than $2 million donation was recently approved by the L.A. City Council to purchase more drones and other equipment.

The Echo Park Neighborhood Council submitted a letter to the City Council last month in opposition to the drone program expansion. 

“LAPD’s track record shows a pattern of misusing existing tools: riot gear, tear gas, and less-lethal ammunition have been deployed against peaceful protesters, World Series celebrators, and ordinary residents,” wrote Windy O’Malley on behalf of the neighborhood council. “There is no demonstrated correlation between LAPD’s continued growth and a safer Los Angeles.”

The vast majority of the 3,000 flights last year were drones that deployed at calls for service before officers, including several hundred flights for training pilots. Additionally, the department’s SWAT team used drones 33 times during various operations. Its bomb and hazardous materials teams used them during seven operations.

Commission President Rasha Gerges Shields asked, in light of department staffing worries, if it was possible to quantify how much money the drone program is saving the department by eliminating officers from some calls.

Hackman said they are working on calculating that, but department officials have estimated, “about 10% of all calls could be handled by the [drones] arriving first on scene.”

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