New Yorkers relaxing at outdoor parties over Labor Day weekend might be surprised to find police drones buzzing overhead.
(Bloomberg) — New Yorkers relaxing at outdoor parties over Labor Day weekend might be surprised to find police drones buzzing overhead.
Police will use the unmanned aircraft to respond to both “non-priority” and “priority calls,” such as 311 complaints about loud music or rowdy parties in public spaces and backyards, NYPD Assistant Commissioner Kaz Daughtry said Thursday.
The plan is part of security efforts for J’Ouvert, an annual festival in Brooklyn celebrating Caribbean-American heritage that coincides with the West Indian American Day Parade Carnival. The parade will be held Monday along Eastern Parkway.
“If a caller states there’s a large crowd, a large party in a backyard, we’re going to be utilizing our assets to go up and go check on the party to make sure if the call is founded or not,” Daughtry said at a briefing.
The NYPD has increasingly used drones to aid in its police work, drawing criticism from civil liberties advocates who say the surveillance of New Yorkers in their own backyards is an unwarranted invasion of privacy.
“Deploying surveillance drones over New Yorkers gathering with their friends and families to celebrate J’Ouvert is racialized discrimination and it doesn’t make us safer,” the New York Civil Liberties Union’s Daniel Schwarz said in a statement. “Pervasive drone surveillance can be easily misused to exploit and discriminate against New Yorkers, putting all of our privacy at risk.”
Data made public by the NYPD show police used unmanned aerial systems 193 times in the first six months of 2023, after using the devices 145 times in all of calendar year 2022.
Mayor Eric Adams, a former police captain, has embraced the use of drones as a crime-fighting tool. He praised Israeli drone technology on his recent visit there.
(Updates with comment from NYCLU in sixth paragraph)
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