Baltimore County police to pilot drone first-responder program in October

Chief McCullough, chief of the Baltimore County Police Department, said the department is piloting a drone first-responder program it expects to have "fully operable in October." He described drones as a tool to provide faster situational awareness to 911 calls and said the program will begin in central Towson.

McCullough said the department will preposition drones and expand the rollout after the initial phase, with plans to add coverage along the Liberty Road/Old Court and Randallstown corridors. "We're prepositioned. We're working, starting in the Towson area first," he said, adding the initial launch will use two drones and that the department typically operates drones in pairs "in case the onethey only have so much battery life." He said the agency plans to expand to four aircraft as the program grows.

The chief emphasized privacy safeguards and evidence handling. "Those drones will not be used for any type of active surveillance," McCullough said, and added that video captured by drone will be stored on evidence.com "the same place where our body-worn camera evidence and video are stored." He said the department modeled parts of its approach on Montgomery County policies "which was vetted by the ACLU."

Board members asked about camera quality, whether drone footage could help identify people in mental-health crisis, and how footage would be reviewed. McCullough described the cameras as U.S.-made and "excellent," said footage quality can exceed helicopter video, and said trained detectives and information-center staff will review incoming drone video. "These people are extremely, experienced people who are watching the video," he said, while also noting limits: "They can't... sometimes they can't" make definitive mental-health diagnoses from video alone.

The department said drones will be dispatched only to 911 calls and will return to docking stations after each response. McCullough said the goal is to use drones as a "force multiplier" to get situational awareness to officers faster; he said drones could arrive on scene in as little as 45 seconds compared with minutes for a ground response in some areas.

Next steps: the department is piloting the system in early October and will assess performance, privacy protocols and community feedback before expanding deployment and making further policy recommendations.