What changed when they automated

What changed when a California police department sent drones to 911 calls before patrol cars

October 1, 2026 · 3 min read

The Chula Vista Police Department has flown teleoperated drones to live 911 calls since October 2018, launching from sites around the city with pilots who listen to calls in real time. Trade press reports more than 25,000 missions, a drone first on scene 17,170 times, and 4,629 calls resolved without a patrol response.

The short answer

A municipal police department sends drones to live 911 calls ahead of patrol units, with video streaming to responding officers before they arrive and every mission logged on a public data portal. As of May 8, 2026 the department announced it had surpassed 25,000 missions, with the drone arriving first on 17,170 of them and an average response time of 96.98 seconds when it did. The account below comes from trade press coverage, so read the numbers as reported, not as audited results. One channel note before the numbers: turnkey drone as first responder programs, the docked, remotely launched, dispatch integrated kind, sell today through exclusive or direct channels that Steel Collar does not hold, and this site says so plainly wherever the subject comes up.

What the job looked like before

Patrol units responded to every call without knowing what they would find. The department was selected in 2018 as one of only 10 teams from hundreds of applicants for the FAA Integration Pilot Project, and the program now flies under extensive beyond visual line of sight waivers.

What they put in

DJI Matrice 200 series aircraft with optical zoom and radiometric thermal cameras, later Matrice M300 RTK and M350 RTK aircraft on a Motorola and Cape platform with parachute recovery systems, as reported by trade press. Two full time pilots and 24 collateral duty pilots, with four designated launch sites across the city.

What changed, in their numbers

More than 25,000 missions since launch as of May 8, 2026. Drone first on scene on 17,170 of those missions. Average response time of 96.98 seconds when the drone arrived before patrol. A role in 4,138 arrests. 4,629 calls where patrol officers did not need to respond because the drone resolved the situation. Program launched October 2018. All reported by trade press and attributed to the department's announcement. Program cost was not published.

What this does not tell you

It does not publish the program's cost, staffing cost or the cost of the waivers and approvals that make it legal to fly beyond line of sight. It does not say how outcomes compare with a similar city without the program. And it is the product of years of regulatory work with the FAA that a department cannot buy off a shelf.

What to verify before you buy

Which crime or response problem you are actually trying to solve, because a drone program answers some and not others. Whether you are buying aircraft, which this site can source, or a turnkey program, which it cannot and will say so. The funding source, because federal money triggers sourcing and approved list rules for the aircraft. And the governance questions, who flies, what is recorded, how long it is kept and who can see it, that decide whether a council supports the program a year in.

Sources: https://dronexl.co/2026/05/15/chula-vista-pd-dfr-drone-program-25000/ and https://www.police1.com/drones/dfr-in-action-inside-chula-vista-pds-drone-as-first-responder-program

If your agency is weighing this, describe the problem to Abe, the concierge on the government side of this site. It will be straight about which parts are dealer territory and which are not, and ask about funding and governance before anything else.

Related on this site

• Government and municipal buyers
• Robots and drones for public agencies
• Name the crime problem first
• Four ways agencies buy
• The casebook of published deployments