LA Police Commission approves $2.1 million for LAPD's drone program

Our Take

CBS LA's reporting on this $2.1 million drone donation is worth watching closely, and credit to their newsroom for tracking it through the Police Commission. What jumps out to us is the funding mechanism itself: a private donation routed through a police foundation, which lets a department scale up aerial surveillance capacity without the same budget scrutiny a line item in the city's general fund would face. That's the same playbook we've seen with Flock Safety camera rollouts nationwide — donors and grants smoothing the path for tech that expands what police can watch, track, and store on ordinary people.

Drones and ALPR networks aren't separate stories. They're two halves of the same surveillance stack. License plate readers tell police where your car has been; drones let them watch where you are right now, often without a warrant and often over neighborhoods that had zero say in the purchase. When City Council votes to accept this donation, it's effectively ratifying a surveillance expansion that started as a handshake deal, not a public debate.

If you want to see how far this kind of camera and tracking infrastructure has already spread near you, check our map, and if you'd rather not wait for your own council to rubber-stamp the next donation, our take-action page has steps for pushing back before the vote happens.