San Bernardino police drones have answered more than 500 calls for service since the department folded the aircraft into its real-time information center roughly two months ago, and officials say the machines are now beating officers to the scene and, in some cases, closing out calls without an officer ever showing up.
Capt. Nelson Carrington told ABC7 that the drone unit's average response time is running more than 70% faster than officers can manage on their own, and that the aircraft have already cleared 17% of the calls they've been sent to without any officer having to respond at all. The drones, he said, travel directly to the locations they're directed to, cutting out the drive time that slows a patrol car navigating traffic and street grids.
How the Drones Get to a Scene Before Officers Do
The aircraft are flown remotely by trained operators working out of police headquarters, according to department officials. Those operators have access to incoming calls for service and stay in contact with both dispatchers and the officers who are driving to the same scene, feeding them real-time information before they ever arrive.
That early look has already changed how at least one case played out. In an incident at a gas station, a drone operator directed officers straight to a suspect and a stash of narcotics, and Carrington said the suspect and the drugs were both taken into custody as a result. The department also says the drones carry thermal imaging that can pick out a suspect in total darkness based on body heat alone, letting operators flag people carrying weapons or locate someone hiding from officers on the ground.
Officer Nathaniel Kolonics said having a drone available while he's out on patrol has made it easier to catch suspects and has improved his own safety on calls, according to the department's account relayed to ABC7. Carrington framed the program as one piece of a broader push by the department to lean on technology and data to serve the community, saying officials intend to keep refining the system to make it more efficient.
San Bernardino Joins a Fast-Growing Statewide Trend
San Bernardino is far from alone in turning to aerial units. Nearly 60 law enforcement agencies across California now run drone programs, according to the Los Angeles Police Department, as cited by CalMatters. Santa Ana recently approved $682,900 for its own Drone as First Responder initiative with Skydio, while Stockton signed off on a $3.15 million contract expansion with Flock Safety to add six drones to a network that already includes 120 license-plate reader cameras, per the same report.
San Bernardino's program followed a county-level funding push: a Board of Supervisors district page states that Supervisor Joe Baca Jr. allocated $562,500 to help launch the department's Drone First Responder program, covering 75% of the total cost for equipment and program expenses, with the remaining 25% funded through the city's COPS allocation, according to San Bernardino County. Earlier this year, the department also turned its drones toward a more seasonal problem, telling the San Bernardino Sun that 2026 marked the first year it used the aircraft to track illegal fireworks activity around the Fourth of July.
Bigger Numbers — and Bigger Questions — Elsewhere in California
Other departments report even larger scale. The LAPD says its drones have been dispatched more than 9,800 times since the program launched the previous July, arriving before patrol officers in 73% of those deployments, according to FOX 11. San Francisco's drone deployments climbed from roughly 350 in 2024 to more than 3,500 in just the first five months of 2026, the Electronic Frontier Foundation reported, prompting the group to push for a more robust department policy given what it describes as the surveillance power of the technology.
Not every city is moving as fast. Oakland's proposed drone-as-first-responder program, expected to cost about $2.6 million over five years, still needed City Council approval as of early November, according to the Oaklandside. A five-month study of departments in Montgomery County, Maryland, and Philadelphia found drones arriving roughly two minutes faster than a typical response, with Philadelphia resolving 72% of its drone calls without sending a patrol unit, per WRAL.
