From humble beginnings, Laredo PD launches DFR program
By DRONELIFE Features Editor Jim Magill
Over the past decade or so, the police department in the border city of Laredo, Texas has seen its drone program grow from operating a single low-tech UAV to a full-fledged drone as first responder (DFR) program, which will involve six BRINC drones stationed in drone nests throughout the city.
In August 2024, the Laredo PD signed a five-year DFR contract with BRINC, in which the Seattle-based company agreed to provide the city with drones, launch stations, flight software, radar integration, training and maintenance. Last month, the police department took possession of the first two drones.
“They brought us a prototype, we flew it, we liked it. So, at the end of the day, we did partner up with BRINC,” Laredo PD Lt. Romy Mutuc, director of the department’s DFR program, said in an interview.
The department’s drone team consists of about 20 police officers, four of whom – including Mutuc – are Part 107 registered drone pilots. In addition, the department employs two civilian Part 107 pilots.
Mutuc said at its onset, the department had maintained a small drone operation, mostly consisting of officers flying a single drone to document outdoor scenes such as accidents that resulted in fatalities or major injuries.
“It was not the most user-friendly setup. We had this huge screen that was mounted on a tripod, the controller was tethered to the screen. The drone had a GoPro 3 on it,” Mutuc recalls.
After several years deploying its initial drone, Mutuc helped secure a DJI Phantom 4 for the department’s use. He said the acquisition occurred almost by lucky happenstance, as a result of a credit card fraud case the department had investigated.
“Somebody stole somebody’s information, used a credit card, bought a bunch of stuff,” he said. Among the ill-gotten items was a Phantom 4 drone, which had the capabilities the department needed to bring its drone program to the next level.
After the fraud case was disposed of and all the victims received compensation, Mutuc said the drone was destined to sit in the department’s property room. “I started working on figuring out how to sign that property out for police use,” he said. “We were able to work it out and, lo and behold, now I have a DJI Phantom 4 on my hands,”
The department used the Phantom 4 for several years, continuing to focus on documenting accident and crime scenes. “We weren’t doing mapping just yet, but just photos and videos of outdoor scenes,” Mutuc said. “We had a drone program, but it wasn’t necessarily a full-fledged program. I didn’t have a budget for it.”
When the department’s only drone reached the end of its useful life, Mutuc said he began looking to buy a new UAV in order to continue to maintain a drone program. Although the department didn’t have a dedicated budget for such a program, it managed to scrape up a small amount of money to buy new drones.
“Right around the same time, the whole talk about DJI getting banned is already gaining circulation,” he said. “I wanted to buy another DJI, but I didn’t want buy a DJI and then all of a sudden find out that they’re banned in the United States and I can’t use one.”
Seeking to stick with American-made drones, the department bought a Skydio 2+ and X2 and began gradually ramping up its drone operations. It arranged for several patrol officers to be certified as pilots and instructed them to take the drones out in their vehicles and put them to use in the field.
“If there’s a call where it would help, then you deploy the drone. We gave them the training. We trusted them with their common sense and their decision-making on when the drone should be deployed.”
All the while, Mutuc and his superiors seeking funding to establish a true drone-based program. They also looked to other police agencies that were building their own drone programs, particularly the police department in Chula Vista, California, one of the pioneers in the movement to establish DFR as a vital police tool.
“But Chula Vista and Laredo are two totally different situations,” Mutuc said. Chula Vista has mild year-round temperatures, with an average August temperature of 77 degrees, whereas Laredo’s climate is best described as hot and semi-arid.
“You can put somebody on the roof. That’s how they started, putting the pilots on the roof and deploying the drones off of there,” he said. “In Laredo, that’s not necessarily something that you want to do. You’d probably give somebody heat stroke if you put them on the roof over here.”
Eventually, as the technology for DFR evolved, drone companies began developing drone stations, or nests, where the UAVs could be stationed to have their batteries recharged in order to be ready to be deployed remotely as needed, without the need to have a person launch them from the rooftop.
DFR program funded by grant
Laredo PD reviewed the DFR designs of several American-based DFR companies, before deciding to go with BRINC. The city’s Auto Theft Task Force Fund helped finance the new DFR program, with a first-year payment of about $433,000, toward the total contract cost of approximately $2.26 million.
“They are a new company, with growing pains here and there, and some technical difficulties,” Mutuc said. “What we’ve loved with them is that they’ve been really responsive. I literally have the engineer’s phone numbers in my phone.”
Working under an FAA certificate of authorization (COA) the city’s DFR pilots work with the police department’s Computer Automated Dispatch (CAD) system. When a 911 call comes in that warrants a drone response, pilots decide which station to deploy the UAV from, based on the distance between the station and the incident. Each station can dispatch a drone within a two-mile radius.
“Our goal is to have six stations around the city, which will really cover a good 90% of the city,” Mutuc said. “Right now, the very first one is centralized in the middle of the city.”
Drones are only dispatched to respond to Priority One calls, including accidents with injuries, domestic disturbances, reports of suspicious persons and shots fired.
In addition, the department’s DFR service includes a feature not found in many other cities’ DFR programs; its drones are capable of carrying a payload of life-saving doses of Narcan, which can be delivered to persons suffering from a potentially fatal drug overdose.
“The drones are equipped with a payload carrier/dropper. They’re always carrying the Narcan underneath the drone and with a push of a button from either the remote control or from the desktop, we could open up that dropper and just drop those two Narcan doses down on the scene,” Mutuc said.
The UAVs are equipped with a loud speaker that allows operators to communicate with persons on the ground, either by speaking to them live or through a predetermined text-to-speech announcement. These announcements, in English and Spanish, can be played on repeat so that the people on the ground can be given clear instructions in how to administer the medication.
Operating in a border town, Laredo PDs drone operators have to be wary of flying in the same airspace where federal law enforcement agencies such as Customs and Border Patrol and Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Mutuc said that largely, this entails ensuring that the department’s drones remain deconflicted from the air operations of their federal counterparts.
“For the most part, they stick to the riverbanks. We stay in the city limits,” he said.
The Laredo PD’s UAVs are equipped with red and blue lights and have a siren feature to ensure that other agencies and members of the public recognize their drones when they’re in operation.
“There is no mistake that this is our police drone that’s up in the air, and it’s not Joe Blow’s drone that he bought at Best Buy and he is just flying around looking into people’s yards.”
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Jim Magill is a Houston-based writer with almost a quarter-century of experience covering technical and economic developments in the oil and gas industry. After retiring in December 2019 as a senior editor with S&P Global Platts, Jim began writing about emerging technologies, such as artificial intelligence, robots and drones, and the ways in which they’re contributing to our society. In addition to DroneLife, Jim is a contributor to Forbes.com and his work has appeared in the Houston Chronicle, U.S. News & World Report, and Unmanned Systems, a publication of the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International.
Miriam McNabb is the Editor-in-Chief of DRONELIFE and CEO of JobForDrones, a professional drone services marketplace, and a fascinated observer of the emerging drone industry and the regulatory environment for drones. Miriam has penned over 3,000 articles focused on the commercial drone space and is an international speaker and recognized figure in the industry. Miriam has a degree from the University of Chicago and over 20 years of experience in high tech sales and marketing for new technologies.
For drone industry consulting or writing, Email Miriam.
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