At one point, Ganim took hold of the drone's controller.
It was a demonstration to cap off the announcement of a new drone program in Bridgeport.
While city police have used drones previously, Chief Roderick Porter said the two new aerial vehicles the department is getting under a contract with Atlanta-based security tech company Flock Safety are more advanced and "will be used as first responders," giving officers an aerial view of a scene before they arrive.
"This drone program will allow us to have eyes in the sky," Porter said. "It will allow us to respond in a more intentional way to crimes or calls for services. It will provide the officers and the first responders with a visual overview of what's taking place, and it will provide footage for our investigations and follow-up investigations to determine what occurred in this particular situation."
Still, the chief added, the drones aren't meant to replace officers but rather "enhance what we do and make us more effective."
Stamford launched a similar "drone as first responder" program last year with drone technology company Paladin.
Bridgeport officials had been exploring the idea of using high-tech drones for police and fire operations since at least the spring of last year.
Officials said Tuesday the city's police could use the drones, which have night vision and thermal imaging, to help find missing people, check out reports of shots fired and track fleeing suspects — a situation that can become dangerous especially when pursuits happen by car. The fire department will be able to use the devices as well.
"The one thing the fire department has always struggled with is an aerial view," Fire Chief Lance Edwards said. "Usually when we get on scene, we do a complete 360 of the building, just to make sure that we're not missing anything. But with this new technology, it's going to provide us an aerial view that will allow us to, first of all, get additional resources (to the scene) quicker."
Flock's Holly Beilin said police departments have used drones in the past by deploying them from patrol cars, but the drones from Flock can be deployed remotely.
"They'll be deployed, likely from right here in the Fusion Center, and they'll be positioned around the city," Beilin said.
The Fusion Center is where public safety personnel monitor the myriad cameras installed around various neighborhoods in the city. Flock representatives said police or fire department employees in the center will be able to fly the drones from behind a computer.
But they insisted that the state's biggest city isn't becoming Big Brother.
Beilin said the drones will only be deployed in response to calls for police or fire service.
"They are not up in the air watching people," she said. "Until the drone reaches the location of the call for service, the camera is facing ahead, looking at the skyline. It's not looking down."
Each flight will be logged and mapped, she said. Any stored video will be encrypted and only retained for a limited period of time — usually 30 days, she said.
Flock drones could be coming to more municipalities in Connecticut soon. Joe Rosenberg from the company said it also has contracts with Hartford and Southington for drones.
Before the drones can take to the skies in Bridgeport, the city has to obtain a waiver from the Federal Aviation Administration that authorizes its public safety departments to fly the vehicles beyond a person's visual line of sight. Flock is expected to help the city with the application process.
State Sen. Herron Keyon Gaston, D-Bridgeport, said that at the urging of City Councilwoman Aidee Nieves, he helped secure $500,000 in funding for the new drone program in the state budget. Porter also acknowledged Nieves' push for the local police department to purchase new drones.
"She has been a thorn ... saying, 'We got to do this, we got to do this, we got to do this,'" Porter said.
© 2026 The Middletown Press, Conn. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
