JimmieJoe / KC6YRU

At the June 23, 2026, Tulare County Board of Supervisor’s meeting, the Tulare County Sheriff’s Office was authorized to implement plans to operate a “Drone As First Responder” program. Purchased through Motorola, the system will, in the Sheriff’s Office words, “enhance operational efficiency, officer safety, emergency response capabilities, and public safety operations through implementation of a Drone as First Responder (DFR) program utilizing the Motorola Solutions BRINC drone platform.”

The Supervisors, in a consent calendar item not pulled (no public presentation or discussion), approved the proposal. There is no cost for the first year of the program. If, after a year-long “test program”, the County wishes to continue, the cost is just under $560,000 a year, for four more years. The Sheriff’s Office plans to use AB 109 Public Safety Realignment grant funding to pay for the cost of this program.

The Sheriff’s Office has used drones for several years, but these models are a technological leap in capabilities. Previously, a Deputy would have to respond to a scene and deploy a drone from their patrol vehicle. With this system, the drones can be deployed from fixed as well as mobile locations.

The Sheriff’s Office plans to operate 8 BRINC Responder drones.

and two Lemur 2 drones.

Here’s the Sheriff’s Office announcement video as posted on Facebook, on September 3, 2026.

Staff with Part 107 FAA licenses will be required to operate the drones, so this will not be something operated by a 9-1-1 emergency dispatcher, or one of the desk clerks at the various sub-stations (unless they become licensed under FAA rules).

I’ve filed a Public Records Act request for details about the staffing for the new drone program, “Specifically, please disclose whether the drone program is managed by personnel within any of the dispatch/communications titles listed above or by a separate job classification (e.g., Deputy Sheriff, specialized unit officer, or external manager).”

These drones will undoubtedly be an important asset in some emergency responses. As with any tool, however, the possibility for abuse and misuse is present. I’ll be interested in seeing what policies are put into effect to prevent such problems. Here’s the current policy on such equipment:

As with the City of Visalia’s Flock Automated License Plate Reader system, this was approved in a Consent Calendar item, with no prior notice to the public, and with no staff presentation or discussion during the Board meeting.

Each new technological advancement brings great benefits to it’s users, and these are another such step. But with expanded capabilities, comes temptation for “mission creep”. Like the Flock cameras starting out as simple license plate readers, but now expanding to vehicle and personal recognition, pattern recognition, and the use of the data to train machine learning algorithms, these drones have the potential to be a great tool for law enforcement. We’ll need to be vigilant to prevent them from growing into more tools of the surveillance state.