Los Angeles – The Federal Aviation Administration has temporarily shot down Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca’s plans to launch unmanned surveillance drones to monitor criminal activity.
The sheriff’s department has been working for seven years with a defense contractor to build SkySeer, a 6-foot-long model plane with tiny video cameras attached that can fit in the back of a patrol car when taken apart.
Baca and other officials have hoped the drones would be a major advance in law enforcement, providing deputies with bird’s- eye views of standoffs and other surveillance operations without the noise and high visibility of helicopters.
The sheriff’s department performed its first demonstration for the news media last week – showing the plane taking off, beaming its video images 250 feet down to deputies and then landing.
But the test raised the ire of FAA officials, who said they had told the sheriff’s department it could not fly the drones without first receiving a certificate of authorization from the agency.
“We were definitely surprised,” said FAA spokeswoman Laura Brown. “We had told them that we were more than willing to sit down and talk about a certificate, but that was before their first flight.”
The FAA is now investigating Friday’s demonstration to determine whether the sheriff’s department should face disciplinary action. The agency will not authorize further use of the drones until the probe is over.
The drones are still in the testing stages. But if they prove effective, the department planned to buy 20 SkySeers at a cost of $20,000 to $30,000 each.
