>> good morning and thank you for being here. i want to introduce our mayor london breed, our lieutenant tom mcgu [indiscernible] assistant chief of operations, lazar and president of our police ceassociation mccray. thank you all for being here and attending the press conference this morning. first of all, we are here to talk about something very exciting to us that's the introduction of our

drone program in the san francisco police department. before i go further, i like to give thanks to mayor, london breed and our da for being here, because it is her leadership that got us here and propositvoters passed in march. excited to anounss sfpd successfully launched our drone program and this is all thanks to drones have truly been a game changer for the police department. think of this, we have been without air support over 24 years since th early 2000 and the officers have tremendous technology at their finger tips other law enforcement agencies regularly use. drones offer major benefits that the captain and lieuten want will discuss shortly. benefits include, fa response times, situational awareness, tactical tools, more precision, de-escalation, more information to formulate n, officer safety enhanced, avoiding in

necessary police chases and integration with technology such as cameras we are thcity as we speak. this is truly a force multiplayer and really in light of all ou staffing shortages, this could not have come at a better time. our first phase of the drone program included the purchase of 6 drones with way. drones already assisted sfpd in numerous cases including a sexual assault suspect, automobile burglary, 4th of july may hame to de-escalation and bring to successful and peaceful resolution very quickly, then previous years, and we also arrested violent and wanted fugitives with help of the drone tech nalg. wehave policies in place to insure drones are use said reasonably

and responsibility with safeguards to ct e public. all the drone opraerts have certification and we plan to increase the use of drones in the months to continue to drive down crime in san francisco. otr ntegrating drones technology such as the alpr cameras and public safety cameras to effective and efficiently respond crime is down in san francisco. it is down lower then it has been in the past decade and with drones wewe can enhance that more. our officers are working very very hard to make sure that this city is the safest city in america and we will e lp of this trend with th drones. our violent crime is down 12 percent, prairpt crime is down 35 percent, and again, i have to give thanks to our leader of our city, mayor breed for making this all happen.

and now, without further ado, i will introducmalondon breed. >> thank you chief scott and thank you to our district attorney brooke jenkins, the pla president lieutenant tracey mccray and others from the san francisco police department joining us today. this partnership didn't just happen. it happened because we worked together. it all started when last year i had a opportunity to visit a number of our stations in san francisco, our police stations and i had conver sations with many officers directly. the feedback time and time again is, we want to do our jobs, but we need more tools to doer b for the people of san francisco, and they would talk to me about technology and how other jurisdictions were using this technology and how effective it was. last year in october, we got

together and we made an announcement based that feedback, proposition e was born. and we were add alamo square where we know is a toplace for car break ins. we stood there to talk specifically about using technology, not just drone technology, pbut surveillance technology and giving offices the tool they need in reportings are cameras that can allow them to not only spend more team onthe streets but effectively do the job of police work that as the chief has mentioned, leads to better safer results. and i couldn't be more happy that the technology that we are finally putting out there, whether it is the whh are also known as license plate readers and the surveillance technology that will also be ous of san francisco to these drones. this is a game-changer and i

must say that, i didn't think it would be as impactful as it has been a game-changeer for our city. last year san francisco saw the lowest crime rate we have seen years, not including the pandemic. this year we are even 34 percent lower then we were in 2023 and this technology has a real game-changeer. we are excited about what this means. we are talking about people who are committing crimes in ouciy, who are not arrested in days but arrested in hours, and having this technology has added additional value. but despite th appreciate the fact that this department has been working really hard on the retail operation, the bait car operation and with this new technology we have a tool to combat issues plaguing our city and they are rly sults. we will see more and more change as a

result of this. but i want to be very when you cross those lines here in san francisco, there will be consequences. i appreciate our district attorney because she is those cases rchlt but we have not abandon values of giving people second chances, providing a robust amount of programs that get people on the right path and working with organizations and communities in order to help people. once those lines are crossed, we have a job to do to protect public safety in this city and now with these technology tools, it is a game-changeer and more importantly, there is more to come. this is only the beginning, the results are already showing very impacts in our department, and i am looking forward to see more as we roll out, as i said more surveillance technology, training more of our officers to be certified

and use drone technology and making sure that we are takivage of every opportunity to keep the entire city of san francisco safe, so we are really excited about this and lo for more to come. >> thank you mayor. now we'll hear from captain chris and lieutenant tom mcguire. before we start, let me thank them for their leadership. proposition e edin march, and the speed in which we have gotten this program together and actually procured a drone, it goes beyond the police it is really instrumental that these two gentleman along with assistant chief lazar and main the department, their leadership made this happen. before i turn it over to them, i also want to thank the other city departments, including our contraom the mayor's and the mayor's office staff and many others

who have really did this with p sense of urgency is the point i'm try toog make here. we have a sense of urgency to make this a nd do the things in the city the people deserve and that sense of urgency is the reason we are here now, not the proposition passed. we launched the drone program. with that, i'll turn it over to captain dellgandio and lieutenant mcguire. >> thank you chief. i'm crist, the commanding officer of strategic investigation unit. myself along lieutenant tom mcguire over see the drone bram. we'll share success stories with you. this is from july 4, obviously. fireworks a major issue in our

city. we are able for the first time to get a dronoverhead and get a visual observation on the ground without putting in danger. while this footage was being streamed to us, we are able to come up with a strategic plan get officers in place and disrupt this activity. as you will see you will see in and disrupt the fireworks being set and--chases folks out of there to create a safe environmefothe neighborhood. we are able to de-escalate the situation because we had a visual observation what was going on from overhead. again, as you can see, the fire works stopped and the folks dispersed.

>> [indiscerni it is very difficult [indiscernible] with tool it enhanced our ability. [indiscernible]operators in there bay area and he is able to maintain the footage and we were able to coordinate resources on the ground and [indiscernible] embarcadero and we are able to do this in a safe efficient manner. without the drone it is nearly impossible very successful. the next day, that happened friday night, this was the next night,

saturday night stolen vehicle, stolen plates. [indiscernible] alerted us the area and some of the officers spotted it out in the area with these individuals [indiscernible] situational awareness and we are able to coordinate with resources ound [indiscernible] prevent pursuit and able to get all the luggage back. they were very pleased and tried to get evth had a lot of success. with this tool the officers are able to be safe and d successful early in the game.

again, [indiscernible] >> thank you captain and thank you. now i like to introduce to our district attorney, enki. >> thank you chief and i like to thank the police department and our mayor london breed for working make this possible. what you just saw is the wave of the future and sadly san francisco had been far behind the curve in having the technology asa city to make sure that we can curb crime. and so i just appreciate the two of them working together to make sure san franctyhas what it needs to not only react once a crime is committed, but hopefully have a system that ultimately begins to future crime, because thats what we want, fewer victims of vime in our city and this is the beginning of able to send a message that if you do things in our city that are illegal you will be caught. a part why i'm here is to that

the two-second and third video you saw resulted in a arrest, but resulted in charges filed by my office against the individuals who participated in the auto-burglaries. we have to look at the steps of the want to arrest and also want to have the evidence we need as a da office to against the individuals to hold them accountable and as a result that arrest and footage we were able to file auto-burb burglary charges and two are repeat offenders. as a trial lawyer, jurors in 2024 expect to see what happened. they dont just want to be told by a police officer what they saw or what their perspective would prefer to have the ability to independently evaluate the evidence in a case, and as

you just saw, this is g be key evidence that my prosecutors can use in the courtroom to not only establish for the jury that the correct persowas arrested, identity wise and convey and demonstrate to them the specific conduct that occurred and who responsible for. that is why i have been supportive of the use of this technology from the very beginning because as prosecutors we have to know we are ing the right person, and also be able to prove that in court and this technology will be essential in allowing us to again, i commend the san francisco police department for not being a bureaucratic agency that took months to figure out nohoto get and acquire this technology but how to use it. thank you for being on top of things work together and i think d that's also the message today, no longer do we have divided leadership in the city,

we are all on the same page want san francisco to go and that is to be a safer city for its residents and for its visitors and business owners and we are one. our thank you. >> thank you da jenkins. in closing to sum up what you heard of the three incidents we showed you involved people breaking into cars, which plagued our city for as we speak today, we are 56 percent down in car break-ins. about 5700 or so car break-ins this time last over 13,000. this technology is only as good as the people who are willing to use it and effectively and and all thanks for the use of this technology goes to the people in front of you. the lieutenant and captain and sergeant and also the officers, because they have embraced this and as the mayor said, they asked for it, they embraced

and are putting to good use. we believe, we believe with all our hearts this is the told you it and is and crime it is low we haven't seen in over a decade that we can into do crime and drive it down further. director crime strategy ryan in the room. ryan please raise your hand. we have to be strategic what we do and how we use the technology and director and his team are part of strategy to make sure we are using this effective and in a way that meets your approval, the people of san francisco and also make sure we can continue to drive crime down. earl r, we have a sense of urgency here and we are taking this extremely serious and we believe this is a game-changeer of thank you mayor, thank you da and everybody here and we'll open this up

for questions. >> quick question, my understanding in had the history of san francisco aerial support unit [indiscernible] what are some of the risks using drones--it is obvious because some cicisco doesn't have a helicopter support program. can you talk about the risk of aerial support from drones [indiscernible] >> well, there are risks with any piece of equipment. drones can crash. the technology is very advanced. some of our technology ha collision avoidance technology where it is all most impossible to crash into anything. you also we have to comply with f a a rules. there is flight patterns we have to be concerned with, but those things thank gence of our team, we have done a lot of research and looked at policies and counties and cities around us.

done field trips toother cities, so we believe we have taken the risks into account and policy reflect that. we two unit orders and we believe we have taken that into account. there is always risk with equipment but fe not unlike a helicopter, if a drone crashes it could cause injury, but you are not investing nearly as much in the equipment. ingabout few thousand dollars if that as opposed to 7 figures or more for a helicopter and i believe in helicopters, but short that, this technology is really really what we need. >> can give [indiscernible] deployment. are these officers staged around problematic areas in the city and that is where you are deploying these dr do you respond quickly >> the investigation of crime. prop d calls for, if we can use

in pursuitti one of the cases you just saw, we were able to avoid a pursuit because officers were able to b pu the spike strips down, so when the suspects tried to run, they couldn't. that is what it is all about. we want to prevent as much as we can crime and pursue suited occurring, but in the event we can't prevent them, it is effective and the bottom ehend the people doing the crimes. we use for investigation of people doing crime and at the end of the pursuit or some situations maybe during the pursuit. if meets the specification what the drone is capable of and that's what the proposition called for and how we have been deploying. >> [indiscernible] problematic areas around those zones? >> it is driven by the investigations. as lieutenant mcguire pointed out, one case you just saw started with the flock pralerting the stolen

vehicle is driving around the vehicle, the drone saw the vehicle and able to see committing more crime and apprehended them. that is how effective the drones can be. >> [indiscernible] this violates state law, ab41 about notification on survan >> we don't believe we areviting state law at all. we believe we are in compliance with state law. we submitte to board of supervisor june 3, the ordinance is still pending. state law and city and county ordinances, we have a basically to put this program in place and then that will be evaluated and approved, so when next year's 481 report comes, this will be in it because we report for the previous year. we believe we are in total compliance with state law.

>> foncerned about privacy issues, to verify these drones are not surveilling passively. that is my first question. a question about how long the video is stored once that video is captured and where is it stored? >> e yes, secure and as far as the drone policy, we do have a retention. if it is first amendment type of thing that is up necessitating the deployment of drowns because of crowd management and crowd control situations. unless there is crimes committed we don't store and save that. if it is a criminal situation like what the da spoke about, we save until the case and resolved. other is it--30 days. 30 days we purge the n tie it to a crime. >> the drones are not passively surveilling and not just launched to watch over, unless there is a

[indiscernible] >> that's correct. we are not just hovering drones over the city just for unknown purpose. n wedeploy these drones it is connected to a criminal investigation and or some critical incident like you saw on the 4th ofjuly with fireworks, that situation was getting out of control very quickly. those type of situations we deploy. we dont just passively fly looking for something. there are specific mission focused on specific crime or critical incident. >> two more questions. [indiscernible] recent complaints that surfacing abt new foot pursuit policy? >> it will be helpful for sure. we don't have the benefit or did not have the neof having aerial support, and especially in a foot pursuit when you are trying to set up a perimeter. that is a game changer. i use that word but it is true,

because what happens when you don't have that type of support, you are much quicker to go into apprehensione. you try to chase the person till you catch them. when you have the luxury of aerial support you can slow things down, you can set up the perimeter these drones are very effective in terms of doing that. the operators know what they are get the perimeter set, it is safer all around and effect ive and it is big deal. we believe it enhances our foot pursuit policy. >> how much is this program overall cost the city? i had that right now. i think we are-- let's see--

>> we'll get that for you. >> yeah. yeah, so total cost so far has been $35 thousand. and that--in our budget this year, thanks to the board and mayo we plan to purchase more, so that cost will go up as we purchase drones. >> last thing from the drone conversation, there claims made that in regards to-all the encampments being cleared right now that there has been people arrested or jailed. is there-can you comment on that or is there uptick of arrests or anything like that? >> drone question or separate? >> separate. >> okay. let me just say this, even though it is not a drone question, our officers have been instructed to support the

law. now the supreme court made their decisionput out department notice what we can and can't do, what we can enforce, which is the law, so the officers have been instructed to do that. we want a clean safe city and that's a part of it. >> thanks for coming out. government television.

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