Skip to main content

NYPD has added a bunch of quadcopters to its crime-fighting kit

The New York Police Department (NYPD) is to start using drones for some of its work in the city.

Joining more than 900 other state and local police, fire, and emergency units across the country that are already making use of drones, the NYPD’s kit comprises 11 DJI Mavic Pro quadcopters, 2 DJI Matrice 210 RTK quadcopters, and 1 DJI Inspire 1 quadcopter.

Recommended Videos

The department will deploy the remotely controlled flying machines for a variety of operations, including search-and-rescue missions, crime scene investigations where the location is hard to access, hostage situations, and hazardous material incidents.

They will not be used for routine patrols, traffic enforcement, immobilizing vehicles or suspects, as a weapon or equipped with a weapon, or as a search tool without a warrant.

The drones will be deployed solely by licensed NYPD officers of the Technical Assistance Response Unit (TARU) who have received extensive training, the police department said.

NYPD

Commenting on the role drones are set to play in the operations of the NYPD, Police Commissioner James P. O’Neill said: “As the largest municipal police department in the United States, the NYPD must always be willing to leverage the benefits of new and always-improving technology.”

He added, “Our new [drone] program is part of this evolution — it enables our highly trained cops to be even more responsive to the people we serve, and to carry out the NYPD’s critical work in ways that are more effective, efficient, and safe for everyone.”

But the New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU) was quick to voice concern about the NYPD’s new drone policy, claiming that there are “no meaningful restrictions on police deployment of drones, paving the way for the NYPD to build a permanent archive of any behavior visible from the sky.”

It added that while there are “legitimate reasons why the NYPD may need to use high-tech equipment like drones to protect our city … law enforcement needs must always be balanced with the privacy rights of New Yorkers.”

The NYPD first tested drone technology almost a decade ago, but ended the trial program in 2011.

A growing number of public safety agencies around the world are turning to drones to aid them in their work, and the machines have already proved their worth in a number of incidents. Earlier this year, for example, cops in the U.K. used a drone with a thermal imaging camera to find a lost person who was in danger of succumbing to hypothermia, while rescuers in Hawaii used the technology to help guide people to safety as lava from Kilauea volcano flowed toward their property.

Trevor Mogg
Contributing Editor
Not so many moons ago, Trevor moved from one tea-loving island nation that drives on the left (Britain) to another (Japan)…
BYD’s cheap EVs might remain out of Canada too
BYD Han

With Chinese-made electric vehicles facing stiff tariffs in both Europe and America, a stirring question for EV drivers has started to arise: Can the race to make EVs more affordable continue if the world leader is kept out of the race?

China’s BYD, recognized as a global leader in terms of affordability, had to backtrack on plans to reach the U.S. market after the Biden administration in May imposed 100% tariffs on EVs made in China.

Read more
Tesla posts exaggerate self-driving capacity, safety regulators say
Beta of Tesla's FSD in a car.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) is concerned that Tesla’s use of social media and its website makes false promises about the automaker’s full-self driving (FSD) software.
The warning dates back from May, but was made public in an email to Tesla released on November 8.
The NHTSA opened an investigation in October into 2.4 million Tesla vehicles equipped with the FSD software, following three reported collisions and a fatal crash. The investigation centers on FSD’s ability to perform in “relatively common” reduced visibility conditions, such as sun glare, fog, and airborne dust.
In these instances, it appears that “the driver may not be aware that he or she is responsible” to make appropriate operational selections, or “fully understand” the nuances of the system, NHTSA said.
Meanwhile, “Tesla’s X (Twitter) account has reposted or endorsed postings that exhibit disengaged driver behavior,” Gregory Magno, the NHTSA’s vehicle defects chief investigator, wrote to Tesla in an email.
The postings, which included reposted YouTube videos, may encourage viewers to see FSD-supervised as a “Robotaxi” instead of a partially automated, driver-assist system that requires “persistent attention and intermittent intervention by the driver,” Magno said.
In one of a number of Tesla posts on X, the social media platform owned by Tesla CEO Elon Musk, a driver was seen using FSD to reach a hospital while undergoing a heart attack. In another post, a driver said he had used FSD for a 50-minute ride home. Meanwhile, third-party comments on the posts promoted the advantages of using FSD while under the influence of alcohol or when tired, NHTSA said.
Tesla’s official website also promotes conflicting messaging on the capabilities of the FSD software, the regulator said.
NHTSA has requested that Tesla revisit its communications to ensure its messaging remains consistent with FSD’s approved instructions, namely that the software provides only a driver assist/support system requiring drivers to remain vigilant and maintain constant readiness to intervene in driving.
Tesla last month unveiled the Cybercab, an autonomous-driving EV with no steering wheel or pedals. The vehicle has been promoted as a robotaxi, a self-driving vehicle operated as part of a ride-paying service, such as the one already offered by Alphabet-owned Waymo.
But Tesla’s self-driving technology has remained under the scrutiny of regulators. FSD relies on multiple onboard cameras to feed machine-learning models that, in turn, help the car make decisions based on what it sees.
Meanwhile, Waymo’s technology relies on premapped roads, sensors, cameras, radar, and lidar (a laser-light radar), which might be very costly, but has met the approval of safety regulators.

Read more
Waymo, Nexar present AI-based study to protect ‘vulnerable’ road users
waymo data vulnerable road users ml still  1 ea18c3

Robotaxi operator Waymo says its partnership with Nexar, a machine-learning tech firm dedicated to improving road safety, has yielded the largest dataset of its kind in the U.S., which will help inform the driving of its own automated vehicles.

As part of its latest research with Nexar, Waymo has reconstructed hundreds of crashes involving what it calls ‘vulnerable road users’ (VRUs), such as pedestrians walking through crosswalks, biyclists in city streets, or high-speed motorcycle riders on highways.

Read more