A quad-propeller drone that could fit in a backpack buzzed in the air outside, its cameras pointed at the station. It had lifted off on its own from atop Fire Station No. 6 in South Dallas and traveled nearly a mile and a half to get there.
The scene Wednesday morning was a demonstration of Dallas' new Drone as First Responder program, which will remotely deploy unmanned aircraft to respond to 911 calls and feed live footage of the scene back to officers.
The program has been in the works for months, with Chief Daniel Comeaux often pitching it as a way to cut sluggish 911 response times. Those have improved in recent months, but still fall below the department's goals — a problem that has lingered for years.
"I'm hoping we can further reduce response times and not have to send officers to certain calls and clear those from the air," Assistant Chief Mark Villarreal said during a news conference after the demonstration.
The drone equipment was included in a $120.6 million amendment to the city's contract with Axon Enterprise that the City Council approved in December. Counter-drone technology was added earlier this month, bringing the total of the 10-year contract to $277.8 million.
The agreement covers the drone responder program and new artificial intelligence capabilities in addition to body-worn and in-car camera systems, electronic control weapons and cloud storage.
Drone stations were placed atop eight fire stations across the city, with each housing one drone. Villarreal said 911 call volume was a factor in deciding the locations, with each station positioned to respond to calls within a 2-mile radius. The drones are permitted to fly up to 200 feet high and up to 35 mph when the conditions are right, Graves said.
Graves, who oversees the drone program, said a ninth station would be installed at Fair Park to assist with the FIFA Fan Festival. The international tournament is expected to bring millions of soccer fans to the Dallas-Fort Worth area, with nine games planned for AT&T Stadium in Arlington.
Police have said the drone responder program will eventually be integrated with gunshot detection technology and automated license plate reading cameras — two tools the department already uses through separate vendors.
Villarreal said those integrations are forthcoming, as is a public-facing online portal that would show information about each drone flight.
He said the drones do not record video while en route to a call. Recording would only activate for felony offenses, warrants, consent or in "extreme emergencies." State laws, he added, also have certain restrictions.
"We take privacy concerns seriously, so we've designed our policy and procedures around those concerns," Villarreal said.
The drone responder program is not only for police. Deputy Chief Eric Beal, Dallas Fire-Rescue's fire marshal, said it would also aid in the fire department's response to structure fires, the speedy response allowing firefighters to quickly estimate how many people to send to the scene.
"That means avoiding a lot of wear and tear on the apparatuses and, more importantly, our personnel," Beal said in an interview, "keeping them at the fire station until a bigger event to respond to."
The demonstrations on Wednesday also included a showcase of Peregrine, software that integrates multiple streams of Dallas police data into a single searchable platform used by officers.
The City Council approved a three-year, $2.7 million agreement for Peregrine in January 2025, funded through a combination of a $900,000 Homeland Security grant and $1.8 million from the city's general fund.
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