La Mesa police looking to add drones to their crime fighting toolbox | NBC 7 San Diego
The short version: La Mesa PD's push for a 'Drone as First Responder' program is another step toward normalizing always-on aerial surveillance with little public oversight baked in.
Our Take
NBC 7 San Diego reports that La Mesa's city council has greenlit a grant application for a "Drone as First Responder" program — the latest city to chase this increasingly popular law enforcement toy. These programs sound reasonable on paper: a drone beats a patrol car to a 911 call and gives officers eyes before boots on the ground. But the framing conveniently skips over what happens to all that footage, how long it's retained, who else gets access to it, and whether flights stay limited to active calls or quietly expand into general patrol and loitering over neighborhoods.
This is the same playbook we've seen with Flock Safety's camera networks: pitch it as a narrow tool for violent crime, get the council to approve it with minimal debate, then watch the mission creep in through policy updates nobody reads. Drones add a vertical dimension to a surveillance dragnet that already includes fixed ALPR cameras scanning every plate that drives through town. Once a city builds the infrastructure and the habit of normalized aerial monitoring, rolling it back gets a lot harder than voting it in.
If you live in La Mesa or anywhere considering a similar program, it's worth asking your council for the actual drone policy — not the press release — before the next vote. Check our camera map to see what's already watching your streets, and hit up our take-action page for tools to push back on surveillance creep in your own city.
This is DeFlock The USA’s original commentary. The video above is the work of NBC 7 San Diego, published on YouTube — full credit to the creator.