San Rafael advisory committee backs leasing drone-as-first-responder system, urges council review

SAN RAFAEL, Calif. — At its April 16 meeting, the Police Advisory and Accountability Committee heard a presentation from Lieutenant Eberly of the San Rafael Police Department on Assembly Bill 481 and voted unanimously to recommend the City Council approve a lease for a drone-as-first-responder system.

Lieutenant Eberly told the committee the system under consideration would cut average response times on high-priority calls and be integrated with the department’s computer-aided dispatch. “We will not share this drone footage. And the data is all is stored on an AWS secured system for 30 days, and then it is deleted, forever deleted,” Eberly said during the presentation.

The recommendation matters because AB 481 requires jurisdictions to hold public meetings and report on certain law-enforcement equipment, and because the drone system carries an expected recurring cost of roughly $150,000 per year. Committee members and a crowd of residents debated the expected public-safety benefits — faster locating of suspects and missing people, thermal imaging for fires and maritime rescues, and evidence collection — against civil- liberties and privacy concerns voiced by several public commenters.

Eberly summarized the police report and the AB 481…