Chief Outlines Four-Platform Vision for Police Drones, As Policy Is OK’d by Commission

The Pasadena Community Police Oversight Commission on Thursday, April 9, recommended approval of a set of policy guidelines for police drone use, establishing community priorities around safety, privacy, civil liberties and data security that will shape the Pasadena Police Department’s policies as it moves toward procuring new unmanned aerial vehicles for traffic mapping, search and rescue, and a potential drone-as-first-responder program.

The final OK must be given by the City Council.

During the same meeting, Police Chief Eugene Harris told commissioners the department envisions four distinct drone platforms — indoor searches by Special Weapons and Tactics teams, three-dimensional traffic-collision mapping, a drone-as-first-responder dispatch program and search-and-rescue operations — and pledged the department will not purchase Chinese-manufactured drones.

The commission voted 6-0, with Vice Chair Selina Ho and Commissioner Raúl Ibanez abstaining, to approve the guidelines developed by the Technology Policies and Processes Ad Hoc Committee.

Six priority categories

The ad hoc committee, led by Lurvey and including Ho, Argento, Rashid and Verrette, met monthly from October 2025 through March in collaboration with Independent Police Auditor Teresa Magula. The panel reviewed drone policies from other jurisdictions and identified six categories of community priorities: safety, privacy and civil liberties, purpose, evaluation and accountability, data security, and transparency and community benefit.

Among the top provisions, the guidelines call for a ban on equipping drones with weapons, a prohibition on facial recognition or other biometric identification technology, restrictions against using drones to monitor constitutionally protected speech or assembly, and data-minimization practices limiting retention of footage unrelated to an authorized mission.

The guidelines also call for each deployment to have a clearly stated purpose and prohibit the use of drones for generalized surveillance, routine patrol or roving monitoring.

The committee recommended heightened privacy safeguards for flights over or near sensitive locations such as schools and hospitals, and urged procurement decisions be driven by public safety needs rather than vendor marketing.

“The ad hoc committee is not an expert on the technology itself,” Lurvey told commissioners. “They are an expert on the community’s priorities.”

Police Chief details four platforms

Harris described the department’s drone plans in detail, beginning with the replacement of aging indoor drones used by the Pasadena Police Department’s Special Weapons and Tactics unit.

Commander William Grisafe, the department’s special operations commander, confirmed the current units are antiquated and no longer operational.

“Those drones are designed to go into places with a search warrant or emergent circumstances and conduct a safety sweep,” Harris said, adding that the goal is to protect both officers and occupants during high-risk entries.

The second platform involves drones equipped with mapping technology for reconstructing fatal and major traffic collisions in three dimensions, providing data used for state reporting and litigation.

The third — and most expansive — is a drone-as-first-responder program in which an electric drone would launch from a stationary garage in response to a specific call for service, fly directly to the scene and relay live video to responding officers before returning to await the next dispatch.

Harris said that technology could reduce the department’s current average response time for priority-one calls from roughly four minutes and 34 seconds to as little as 30 seconds for an initial aerial view.

“If we go to a man-with-a-gun call and the drone gets there in 30 seconds and shows that the man doesn’t have a gun, that information is provided back to the patrol units,” Harris said.

The fourth platform covers search-and-rescue operations, including the potential use of thermal imaging cameras — technology the department already employs on helicopters — to locate missing or injured people in hilly terrain or wooded areas north of Altadena.

Harris stressed that all drones under consideration would be human-controlled, carry no weapons of any kind including less-lethal devices, and operate only on assigned missions. He added the department would welcome commissioners touring its data-handling operations to see how information is managed and retained.

Framework for future technology reviews

Before taking up the drone guidelines, the commission discussed the ad hoc committee’s broader proposed framework for reviewing any new law enforcement technology.

Under the process, which is expected to return as a formal amendment to the commission’s rules and regulations at a future meeting, a dedicated ad hoc committee would be formed for each piece of equipment, conduct research, develop a set of community priorities, present them to the full commission for approval and then transmit them to the department before any procurement.

Magula noted the commission’s authority under Pasadena Municipal Code Chapter 2.60 is limited to policy review and recommendations, not procurement or budgetary decisions. She acknowledged the scope might frustrate community members who want a broader examination of whether a technology should be acquired at all.

“I want to acknowledge in advance that this might be unsatisfying to members of the public who believe that this body has a larger scope,” Magula said, adding that the committee had worked to define the broadest possible mandate within those constraints.

Public comment and community input

Several members of the public urged the commission to find more robust methods for soliciting community input before voting on technology policies. Humara Afzal, a regular commenter, pressed the commission to seek feedback well in advance of any vote, particularly from residents who are least likely to attend evening meetings at City Hall.

“The input doesn’t count when you get it the same day and you only get it from a handful of people,” Afzal said.

Another regular commenter, identified as Yadi, asked the commission to consider applying the new framework retroactively to the Pasadena Police Department’s existing Automated License Plate Reader deployment and said that existing state law — Assembly Bill 481 — already regulates the department’s current drone inventory used by the Special Weapons and Tactics unit under Policy 408.4.4.

Jones acknowledged the feedback, noting the commission has worked to expand community engagement this fiscal year and invited members of the public to help identify new outreach strategies.

The commission’s next regular meeting is scheduled for Thursday, May 14, at the Jackie Robinson Community Center. Planned agenda items include the police chief’s annual report, a presentation on Policy 428, a preview of the new public recommendations tracker and a possible resolution on the adultification of Black girls. A special meeting is also expected between May and June to address pending rules and regulations, the Independent Police Auditor’s complaint review and the department’s response to the use-of-force review’s 29 recommendations.