New report details drone use by law enforcement agencies in Minnesota

A growing number of law enforcement agencies are using drones to assist with search and rescue efforts, for public safety and with investigations in Minnesota. Nearly 100 law enforcement agencies statewide maintained a drone in 2020, according to a new report.

The aerial equipment gives Cottage Grove Police an advantage from above when every moment matters. The additional viewpoint helps them guide officers on the ground.

“He’s able to change speed, altitude as well as zoom in and out of whatever he’s looking at,” said Sgt. Michael McCormick, demonstrating how the drones work. “We’re able to transmit this back to the police department.”

He explained the department has two drones, which he feels is the right number for their department. The equipment has infrared technology, a spotlight and a camera.

Cottage Grove Police started using drones in the spring of 2020.

“The whole initial idea of it was to save lives,” McCormick said. “We’ve got parks and water everywhere so really the idea was to have an extra set of eyes above to assist with officers.”

He told 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS they’ve primarily used drones to find missing children or vulnerable adults. Earlier this month, Cottage Grove Police posted to Facebook they used a drone to help successfully locate a non-verbal 7-year-old boy who wandered away from home.

McCormick also described multiple instances where they were able to monitor a suspect during a standoff, including a deadly 2019 incident.

“A gentleman had sexually assaulted someone, stolen a vehicle and ended up in our city and took a family hostage so, as we were listening to that, we realized this would be a great place for a drone,” McCormick said. “We were able to have the drone above that home and were able to instruct officers to what we were seeing and where he was at so that’s where it’s really beneficial for a law enforcement type of call.”

The new report shows Cottage Grove Police used a drone 53 times in 2020.

“I always had a feeling there was a need for it but I didn’t realize to that extent,” he said.

The 2020 Use of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles legislative report gives a picture of drone use across the state. It’s the first year it’s been published.

According to the report, 93 agencies either maintained or used a drone during 2020. There were 1,171 flights recorded.

The report is the result of new regulations the legislature passed last year. The bipartisan law prevents an agency from deploying a drone with facial recognition technology unless authorized by a warrant, prohibits law enforcement agencies from equipping drones with weapons and limits how long drone video can be retained.

The bipartisan law also requires agencies to acquire a search warrant to use a drone except for nine circumstances:

(1) During or in the aftermath of an emergency situation that involves the risk of death or bodily harm to a person.

(2) Over a public event where there is a heightened risk to the safety of participants or bystanders.

(3) To counter the risk of a terrorist attack by a specific individual or organization if the agency determines that credible intelligence indicates a risk.

(4) To prevent the loss of life and property in natural or man-made disasters and to facilitate operational planning, rescue and recovery operations in the aftermath of these disasters.

(5) To conduct a threat assessment in anticipation of a specific event.

(6) To collect information from a public area if there is reasonable suspicion of criminal activity.

(7) To collect information for crash reconstruction purposes after a serious or deadly collision occurring on a public road.

(8) Over a public area for officer training or public relations purposes.

(9) For purposes unrelated to law enforcement at the request of a government entity provided that the government entity makes the request in writing to the law enforcement agency and specifies the reason for the request and proposed period of use.

Each time a law enforcement agency uses a drone for one of those purposes, it must be documented and submitted to the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, which compiles the annual report for the legislature.

“The process of getting this law finally to passage was a lot of discussions with law enforcement, stakeholders, legislators,” Julia Decker, the policy director at ACLU-Minnesota, said. “It was very significant in that there was nothing before.”

Decker said she is still reviewing the report and said it’s hard to say at this point whether the law is achieving what they hoped for.

“One of the concerns about drones in general is they are really small, they are very mobile, they can be used quite secretly without people knowing about it,” Decker said. “I think the fact that we do have this report and we’ve got numbers that are being reported from a variety of agencies indicates at least that part of the law is garnering some results.”

She said the ACLU will keep track of trends as more reports are filed in the coming years.

“I think will need to continue to be vigilant though if there are cases where drone technology is not being used appropriately, if we see additional problems with it,” she said. “We will want to continue to monitor that and see if there will need to be additional restrictions, additional reporting, transparency, oversight.”

At the Cottage Grove Police Department, Sgt. McCormick has welcomed the new law and reporting process.

“It’s great, we want consistency,” he said. “We want to be able to say we’re doing it the right way.”

Law enforcement agencies are now required to have a drone policy and post it on their website.

“We make sure we’re following in line with the expectations of the public as well as the FAA,” McCormick said.

The Dakota County Sheriff’s Office is also seeing the benefits of drones. The agency put its four drones up 64 times in 2020; about half of those were for training exercises.

“You can cover a lot more area with a drone quickly with the cameras and the technology we have you know advanced vision technology, thermal imaging and things like that,” Chief Deputy Joe Leko said. “You can maybe see a heat source from a body in an area that you would not be able to see with a naked eye […] You can see everything easier. It’s also a safe option, putting a drone up in the air rather than having a team searching through a wooded area.”

According to Leko, they’ve deployed their drone to assist city police departments within the county as well.

The report shows they’ve used drones in a variety of calls, hitting nearly all of the nine exceptions. Leko explained more specifically that they’ve used drones to locate suspects who ran from law enforcement, find missing children, reconstruct crash scenes and gain overhead views of crime scenes.

In one case, they assisted with a protest in Eagan.

“Rather than have our officers present and lined up on the street we decided to take that option to just put a drone up,” Leko said. “We don’t collect database of photos of people at gatherings that might have unrest or anything like that in there. We are basically an oversight – if something does happen where the public or those in that peaceful protest becomes unsafe, we have those eyes on it. Basically we can call in resources to deal with that. It’s not to identify who’s who.”

Similar to Cottage Grove Police, Leko said in some situations it helps improve officer safety.

“When you’re looking for someone who might be dangerous, if you can create that distance and locate somebody that might be in the woods, it gives you time to negotiate and make contact with that person, give them the ability to come out without having any kind of altercation,” Leko said.

He understands that some people may have concerns about their privacy.

“We’re not out there surveilling people to see what they’re up to, or hovering over the house or looking into their windows,” said Leko. “We’d need warrants for those things and you have to have probable cause to have a warrant.”

He added that they’ve only used a warrant in two situations over the last year to search homes connected to crimes.

According to a report from the Minnesota Court System, judges issued zero search warrants for law enforcement use of drones from Aug. 1, 2020 to Dec. 31, 2020.

The Dakota County Sheriff’s Office is using new software to document how they use drones, where they fly, how long they fly and how high they go up. Leko said, in an effort to be transparent, they are willing to share that information with members of the public who have questions.

Drones have become a beneficial tool, he said.

“I think you’ll see this continue to grow as it becomes more accepted and more trusted by the public and other agencies see the benefit behind it because I think it really provides the ability to slow down situations and, like I said, see situations from literally a different view, Leko said.