Quiet buzzing breaks through the still air. There’s a four-legged, flying object in the sky. Its three reflective eyes stare out, scanning, searching. It’s a Skydio X10 drone — A.I.-powered, with advanced thermal imaging, and the ability to detect a 0.1mm crack in a concrete bridge.
On Jan. 23, the Santa Cruz City Council unanimously approved the purchase of five Skydio X10 drones for the Santa Cruz Police Department (SCPD).
According to drone manufacturer Skydio, the unmanned aircraft system (UAS) is “designed for first responders, infrastructure operators, and the U.S. and allied militaries around the world.”
The drone purchases were met with contention from locals during public comment. Some said the money could be reallocated to public services that would decrease the crime rate in Santa Cruz. Others expressed distrust of the police, fearing surveillance and infringement on personal privacy.
“We need to be concerned about the way these technologies are going to be used to surveil protestors because we’ve seen this happen in Santa Cruz and in other cities around the country,” said Camilla Hawthorne, associate professor of sociology and critical race and ethnic studies (CRES) at UC Santa Cruz.
The Santa Cruz Sheriff’s Office currently owns 24 drones and partnered with SCPD in the past to use their equipment inventory. SCPD Police Chief Bernie Escalante expressed in the meeting that the partnership was limited due to response times and the possibility of multiple incidents occurring at once.
Community activist and Santa Cruz Cares member Reggie Meisler challenged the motives for the SCPD’s drone request.
“Police have a lot of incentives to use automated surveillance because 50 percent of the budget is patrol — human beings trying to surveil an area,” Meisler said. “Chances are you’re looking for as many ways to automate surveillance as possible and catch people who are committing crimes that increase revenue for the city, so a human being doesn’t need to be paid to watch an area indefinitely.”
Chief Escalante disagrees.
“I don’t even attach the word ‘surveillance’ to this because surveillance to me sounds very random,” Chief Escalante said. “In fact [drone usage policy] specifically says it’s prohibited to conduct random surveillance activities. We have to have a legal reason to deploy it.”
Some uses for the drone outlined by the SCPD are search and rescue missions, lost or missing persons, investigating suspicious or explosive devices, and crime scene documentation. Drones can also be used to pursue valid search and/or arrest warrants, as well as for monitoring a subject in a criminal investigation.
A warrant for drone usage is required except for exigent circumstances, such as an active shooter situation. The program coordinator of the UAS program is required to develop a protocol for “urgent requests made during ongoing or emerging incidents.”
Section 607.3 of the SCPD’s Unmanned Aerial System Policy prohibits operators from recording or transmitting images of any location where a person would have a reasonable expectation of privacy if there is no warrant or exigent circumstance.
Concerns
The Instagram account @santacruzcopwatch, created in Jan. 2024, has been an outspoken critic of the drone purchase on social media. @santacruzcopwatch founder, who asked to go by the alias of Bernie*, said that the recent drone purchase was just the “tip of the iceberg” of militarized equipment used by the SCPD.
“You can cite the Lenco BearCat armored vehicle, you can cite [specialized] shotguns. No regular civilian would be able to purchase, but yet a police department smaller than 30 is allowed to have that kind of arsenal,” Bernie* said. “It builds more distrust amongst so-called public safety officers and regular people.”
In 2024, the SCPD saw an 11 percent budget increase from last year, with their current budget standing at $33,533,119. The total budget of the City of Santa Cruz for the 2024 fiscal year is $139,968,524, with 24 percent of the total budget going toward SCPD.
Under the contract with Axon Inc., SCPD could spend up to $254,932 over the next five years, using funds from the Police Department Asset Seizure 214 Fund. The contract would equip two patrol vehicles with operational materials in addition to software, subscriptions, and personnel training required for drone usage.
“I don’t think you can put a price tag on a community member or an officer’s life,” Chief Escalante said. “We can always use money for more resources, right? But I also think [the drone purchase] is a good use of finances to provide a better way for us to respond to certain calls and in the end, potentially save lives.”
Others, like Camilia Hawthorne, see the purchase as skirting around the root causes of social issues in Santa Cruz.
“There are other ways that we could reallocate that money […] into life-affirming services, rather than having police who are not trained social workers addressing these community challenges,” Hawthorne said.
California Assembly Bill 481, signed into law in 2021, requires all law enforcement agencies to seek approval for the funding, acquisition, and use of militarized equipment. SCPD policy 705 requires public disclosure of all military equipment for Santa Cruz.
Still, community members question the timing of the purchases. Recently, Santa Cruz has seen heightened protest and strike activity regarding the pro-Palestine movement.
Hawthorne was a new faculty hire during the 2020 Graduate Student Wildcat strikes. She recalled the police crackdowns against student protestors at the base of campus during the strikes. Later, a Vice report found that the California National Guard provided military surveillance to the Santa Cruz Police Department to monitor and police demonstrators.
In 2020, the Department of Homeland Security used drones to surveil Black Lives Matter protests. In Oct. 2023, the New York Police Department used drones to monitor pro-Palestine protests.
When asked by City on a Hill Press whether the drones could be used to monitor protests, Chief Escalante said that if there is no criminal behavior, it would be against Section 607.6 of the UAS policy to have overhead monitoring of a lawful rally.
“If there’s people breaking off and committing acts of property damage or that sort of thing, there would be some value in capturing that,” Chief Escalante said. “But if it’s more of just a peaceful sit-in, disrupting traffic– I don’t really see the […] equipment being used for that.”
While this model of drone has the capacity for facial recognition software, the Santa Cruz City Council stated they will not install facial recognition software or employ the drone for that purpose.
“This is not a weapon. It has no ability to shoot anything or project anything,” said Mayor Fred Keeley. “It is a camera that flies and provides communication for the police on the ground to enhance their ability to deal with a situation in a safe way.”
Concerns were raised by councilmember Sonja Brunner about how the drones will disproportionately affect communities of color who experience higher rates of injustice in the law enforcement system. These sentiments were echoed by community members and organizers such as Peter Gelblum, Chair of the Santa Cruz Chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).
“It has to do with some institutional racism. It has to do with who’s paying their bills, who has the loudest voices, who has the most influence with politicians,” said Gelblum, speaking on his own behalf and not for the ACLU. “Poor people and people of color generally have much less say and influence. I think as a result, law enforcement feels freer to abuse those communities than to abuse wealthier, whiter communities.”
Following approval, the SCPD is preparing for the Federal Aviation Administration certification process and subsequent incorporation of drones into their equipment inventory.
“[The police] are public servants who are supposed to serve the people,” said Gelblum, still speaking on his own behalf.“Every time they get more militarized, it feels more and more like they’re an occupying force here to control and scare us into submission rather than to serve us and do what we need.”
