St. Paul pulled its $200,000 drone grant the week Bellevue approved one and a Boston police drone landed on a car
Three councils dealt with Drone as First Responder programs in the same week, and the outcomes tracked with how much each department had published about cost, data, and flights rather than with what the drones did on calls.
By Joel Kelly
What changed: Update, September 14, 2026: four more launches in the ledger. The Snohomish County, Washington, Sheriff's Office announced a countywide Skydio program under a BVLOS Certificate of Waiver or Authorization with a public flight portal (Lynnwood Times, September 14); Providence, Rhode Island, police launched a program after a September 5 armed-suspect pursuit (Providence Journal, September 14); Vernon Hills, Illinois, began limited rooftop launches (Daily Herald, September 14); and Lompoc, California, launched a Flock-based program (Santa Maria Times, September 14). Update, September 12, 2026: Monroe County, Michigan, ended its planned drone first responder pilot in the resolution that also canceled the county's Flock camera funding, the Monroe News reported September 10.
Decision brief
A rescue clip does not carry a council vote anymore. St. Paul's drones found a child in a pond two days before the council withdrew the grant request, and the council president's stated reason was unanswered questions about where data is stored and where and when the aircraft fly. Agencies asking for money should publish the contract cost, the retention policy, and a flight log before the meeting. Boston's crash is a separate reminder that a dock program is a Part 107 or COA operation with reporting duties, and someone should say whether the FAA was told.
- St. Paul grant
- $200,000
- Bellevue pilot
- 1 year
- Boston crash
- Sept. 3
DOJ CPD Microgrant application, withdrawn September 9
Approved September 8, Skydio aircraft, police and fire
BRINC Responder onto a parked car in Brighton
St. Paul
Withdrawn rather than voted down, with the reason on the record.
The St. Paul City Council withdrew resolution RES 26-1399 on September 9 rather than vote on it. The resolution would have authorized the police department to apply to the Justice Department's FY 2026 Community Policing Development Microgrants Program, which caps awards at $200,000 over 24 months, to add three docked drones for 2027 and 2028. Council President Rebecca Noecker said the item was withdrawn because the council does not support an expansion of the drone program until a number of questions and concerns are addressed, and that the council would not be authorizing the application. The legislative file shows 38 written public comments, most of them opposed. Two members, Molly Coleman and Hwa Jeong Kim, had said on September 2 that they would vote no whenever it came up.
The docked program is three months old. Three Skydio X10 aircraft began launching from the rooftops of three city buildings on May 30, one per patrol district, to reach selected calls before officers; DroneXL counted 472 missions in the first four weeks. On September 7 one of them reached a pond behind the East Side Boys & Girls Club about two minutes before officers and located a five-year-old with autism who had wandered from home, and officers pulled the child from the water. The department posted the drone video the next day. Deputy Chief Kurt Hallstrom has told the council that the aircraft launch only on calls for service, that the department shares no drone data, and that every flight is posted to the city's public safety technology page within 12 hours. What the department has not published, as DroneXL noted in June and again this week, is what the program costs. The same council ended the city's Flock license plate reader contract in late August.
Bellevue and Boston
One approval with a dashboard promised, one crash with a report to account for.
Bellevue, Washington, went the other way the day before. Its council approved a one-year Drone as First Responder pilot on September 8, launching this fall with Skydio aircraft flown by two trained patrol officers, for police calls and for fire department requests including structure fires, hazmat incidents, technical rescues, and collisions. The city says the aircraft deploy only during a call for service, that data follows local retention policies and state law, and that a public transparency dashboard will be available. Funding comes from the council, the Bellevue Police Foundation, and Apex Systems. The city did not publish a dollar figure or an aircraft count.
Boston supplied the week's other data point. The Boston Police Department launched a Drone as First Responder pilot with Motorola Solutions and BRINC over the last weekend of August, with FAA-certificated officers flying BRINC Responder aircraft from weatherproof docks on 911 calls and ShotSpotter activations, cameras pointed at the horizon until arrival. On September 3, around 1:30 p.m., one of the aircraft came down in pieces in a driveway on Hatherly Road in Brighton and damaged the rear windshield and trunk of a parked Mazda 3, according to the police incident report obtained by the Boston Herald. BRINC collected the wreckage. Larry Calderone, president of the Boston Police Patrolmen's Association, used the crash to restate the union's opposition to the program. Neither the department nor the Herald reported a cause or whether an FAA report was filed. Under Part 107, damage to property other than the aircraft above $500 must be reported to the FAA within 10 days; a public aircraft operation under a Certificate of Authorization carries its own reporting terms.
Before the vote
Four things to publish before asking a council for drone money
The programs that survived this week's meetings had already answered these in writing.
- 01
The cost
Contract value, annual operating figure, and who is paying, including foundations and private sponsors.
- 02
The data policy
Where video is stored, who can view it, how long it is kept, and whether any vendor or agency receives a copy.
- 03
The flight log
A public page listing every launch with time, call type, and location, updated on a stated schedule.
- 04
The accident path
Who reports a crash to the FAA and under what authority, and where the public will read about it.
What it adds up to
Publish the cost and the log before the meeting.
Pittsfield, Massachusetts, added a smaller vote on September 8, when its council rejected $31,167 in federal grant money for two police drones after what the Berkshire Eagle described as a heated debate. Read together, the week says less about drones than about paperwork. The program that cleared its council arrived with a dashboard promised, a stated retention policy, and named funders. The one that did not had a rescue video and an unpublished cost.
Source file
Verify the reporting
- City of Saint Paul: RES 26-1399, authorizing a DOJ CPD Microgrants application (laid over September 2, final action September 9, 2026)
- City of Saint Paul: public safety technology page with posted drone flights
- Pioneer Press: St. Paul City Council doesn't support expanding drones without concerns being addressed (September 9, 2026)
- DroneXL: St. Paul votes on police drones two days after pond rescue (September 9, 2026)
- City of Bellevue: Drone as First Responder pilot program announcement (September 9, 2026)
- Boston Police Department: Drone as First Responder pilot program launch (August 28, 2026)
- Boston Herald: Boston Police drone 'destroyed' a car in Brighton crash (September 9, 2026)
- Berkshire Eagle: Pittsfield City Council rejects federal grant for police drones (September 9, 2026)
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