Pottstown council to consider DA-led drone pilot tied to ShotSpotter alerts

Pottstown Borough Council placed on its July meeting agenda a proposal from the Montgomery County district attorneyto install a drone "nest" on the roof of Borough Hall and deploy a small drone to ShotSpotter alerts in the borough. The chief of police described the drone as an automated supplement to the existing ShotSpotter gun-detection system and said the district attorneywould cover costs and liability.

The proposal matters because the system would put a camera-equipped, autonomously-deploying drone above parts of Pottstown during some emergency responses, raising operational, privacy and FAA-safety questions that councilors said must be addressed before any expansion of use.

Chief Markovich, Pottstownpolice chief, described how the system would work and the equipment involved. "When ShotSpotter goes off, they'll push a button. The drone will automatically deploy and begin recording, and it will automatically fly to the ShotSpotter alert area and begin recording the scene," he said, adding the drone would typically fly at about…