Is Concord Ready for Police Drones?

Oct 10, 2021 | Community Safety

Here at CCA, we don’t think so.

We need basic transparency from the Concord PD on their drone program proposal and use policy. As presented to us, the use policy (viewable here), is void of a police oversight committee or commission, budget expenditures, tools to measure success, data tracking to provide evidence the program is working as intended and reporting tools to be used, and procedures and protocols.

 

Our main concerns: 

  • We want the community to be able to review and provide feedback on surveillance proposals and expenditures, including a draft usage policy weeks (not days) before these proposals are discussed in City Council.  

  • On top of a police oversight committee, Concord should adopt a Community Control Over Police (CCOPS) Surveillance Ordinance that promotes transparency, the public’s welfare, civil rights, and civil liberties  

  • Instead of spending taxpayer funds on a surveillance tool, drone program, that has no evidence to prove it prevents crime, invest in programs that actually increase the health and safety of Concord residents by funding youth programs, invest in more tenants and businesses who need rent support to prevent evictions, and coordinated housing assistance for seniors and the unhoused. 

  • Drones will discourage people from engaging in protests and other first amendment rights. Police informed us recently that they borrowed a drone from another jurisdiction and dispatched a drone to monitor Concordians gathered in Todos Santos Plaza after the death of George Floyd.  

  • Police frequently turn surveillance technologies against people of color, immigrants, and vulnerable populations. This technology can criminalize entire neighborhoods by using heat maps and facial recognition, storing images of people, and helping to identify residents.  Using drones to increase the police presence in our communities raises the likelihood that residents will have unnecessary contact with police and that routinely leads to police violence against Black and brown people.  

 

“Public” meetings

Late in the spring, CPD conducted by video conference what might best be called information meetings rather than real outreach. These meetings were announced in forums like NextDoor – which can have very limited visibility and access – often on very short notice. Concerns were expressed about the use of drones for surveillance, the need for more data to be made public, and the need for there to be a collaborative process by which appropriate policies were developed. Some requested that a resident police oversight commission be put in place prior to implementing a drone program.

Instead, CPD has proceeded towards implementing a very brief policy developed on an almost purely internal basis, and that draft policy was not made available to the public until Oct 7.

 

A template policy, no measurement of outcomes

CPD’s use policy is the worst general template from Lexipol. Their policy does not seem to consider community feedback.

The department has also not been able to provide guidance on outcome measures. In recent meetings, department representatives did acknowledge an intention to do so, but could not specify what those measures would be. The department’s initial stance on measuring the outcomes of drone use seems to have been that the success of the program could not be measured. If anything, such vagueness only reinforces a lack of readiness.

As is the case when resident oversight is not a part of the picture, real partnership with the residents of Concord – real accountability – seems to have been given short shrift.

Learn more with the ACLU Template Example from Lexipol

 

Grant money from a terrible source

Another issue: One of the selling points made by in CPD’s information meetings is that the program would have no budget impact due to a grant that would come from the private sector. In the public meetings, the source of the funds was never named. Late on Oct 7th – when the Oct 12th City Council agenda was published – it was revealed that the source of the grant is Marathon Petroleum.

Multiple credible and robust research and watchdog groups have reported that Marathon Petroleum has an active and well-documented program to fund police activities and political campaigns which enhance surveillance capabilities, create harsher penalties for environmental protesters, and which protect their interests over and against those seeking to protect the climate and the environment, and the sustainability of human life.

The Institute for Policy Studies names Marathon Petroleum as a primary example in their white paper Muzzling Dissent – How Corporate Influence over Politics has Fueled Anti-Protest Laws. It is a matter of record that Marathon was very recently fined more than $2 million for refinery violations by the Bay Area Air Quality Management District, and has paid more than $1.4 billion in fines over a period of years for environmental, labor, and other violations. Littlesis.org cites them as a prime example in its research on how the fossil fuel industry pollutes minority communities while propping up racist policing.

They are a neighbor, but they aren’t exactly paragons of civic virtue. We can do better than this in Concord.

 

The bottom line

In brief: None of the work necessary to really prepare Concord for a good police drones program was pursued, never mind completed. And no real data has been provided to substantiate how drones will positively address real problems for which there is no other practicable solution, while also addressing concerns about privacy and rights. Instead, the public was basically shut out of a process that failed to establish good marks for transparency, collaboration, basic good management principles, and accountability. This is not a step in the right direction.

More information on drones and surveillance tools is available in the ACLU GUIDE on drones.