At Monday’s Miami Springs City Council Meeting, the City Council approved the purchase of a pair of drones valued at $50,000 combined or roughly $25,000 apiece.  Now, I know what you’re thinking, “What?  $25,000 for a drone?  Are you kidding me?  That’s the price of a good used car.”

Well, these aren’t off the shelf consumer DJI drones.  In fact, they aren’t even Chinese drones.  These are American made drones.  That means there’s more security from foreign firmware and software intrusion.

Furthermore, these drones have advanced optics, FLIR (Forward Looking Infra-Red), radar, obstacle collision avoidance technology, and much more.  Here’s a quick snapshot of some of the features of the Parrot ANAFI UKR Drone:

• Sensor: FLIR BOSON – Resolution: 640 x 512 px
• Satellite navigation: GPS, GLONASS, Galileo & BeiDou
• Sound power level at 1 m (3 ft): 77 dBA
• Service ceiling: 5,000 m above MSL (Mean Sea Level) that’s over 15,000 feet
• Zero data shared without user consent
• Flight Planning with waypoints and points of interest
• Optical Navigation
• Native Mapping missions within FreeFlight 8
• 38 Minute Battery Life

About the Parrot ANAFI UKR

According to the drone provider, DroneNerds.com, the Parrot ANAFI URK is “Designed to meet the operational demands of both frontline defense missions and public safety deployments, the ANAFI UKR range combines tactical-grade resilience with embedded autonomy in a compact, easily deployable format.”

Who’s paying for these drones?

According to the City of Miami Springs, these drones are being sponsored as part of a grant from the Florida Department of Law Enforcement or FDLE.

Here’s the letter from Miami Springs Police Chief, Matthew Castillo, explaining the request for the new high tech, resilient drones:

Recommendation: 

Recommendation by the Police Department that Council approve an expenditure to DroneNerds, not to exceed $50,000, for the purchase of two (2) Parrot ANAFI UKR PSV RID Ready Kits for the Miami Springs Police Department, as funding for this purchase is provided through the Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE) Bureau of Criminal Justice Grants, as part of the Drone Replacement Program established in Chapter 2023-240, Laws of Florida, which authorizes expenditures of up to $25,000 per drone, as funds were approved in the FY 25/26 Budget, pursuant to Section §31.11 (E)(6)(c) of the City Code. 

Discussion/Analysis: 

The Miami Springs Police Department respectfully requests authorization to open a purchase order with DroneNerds for the purchase of two (2) Parrot ANAFI UKR PSV RID Ready Kits. The total cost for both units is $45,568, as detailed in the attached quotation from DroneNerds. Nonetheless, this purchase will be funded through the FDLE Bureau of Criminal Justice Grants, under the Drone Replacement Program established in Chapter 2023-240, Laws of Florida. Funding for this project allows for expenditures up to $25,000 per drone, making this purchase compliant with the approved grant budget. 

Approval of this request will allow the Department to proceed with the acquisition and implementation of these upgraded drone systems to enhance operational efficiency and public safety initiatives. DroneNerds has been identified as a sole source vendor, providing the most fiscally responsible quote out of three (3) vendors reviewed. Approval of this expenditure will authorize the Police Department to open a purchase order with DroneNerds and proceed with the acquisition of the two drone systems to support operational and public safety initiatives. 

Other Key Benefits:

Miami Springs Police Lieutenant, Robert Castillo, explained at Monday’s Miami Springs City Council Meeting that this technology improves Miami Springs Police Department’s availability to respond to incidents.  “The information the drone provides is unavailable to us unless we call Miami-Dade Sheriff’s Office Helicopters…which we sometimes run into issues if the helicopter is unavailable because it’s already being utilized or because of our location to the airport.  Being so closed to it [the airport] sometimes they [the helicopters] can’t find so close due to the airspace encompassing the city.”

Some of the key benefits of the law enforcement drones include but are not limited to:

• It’ll assist in search and rescue and missing persons
• Drones with thermal imaging and night vision cameras enable law enforcement to scan large, otherwise hard to reach areas quickly
• Tactical and high risk situations
• Provide overwatch
• Identify suspect positions
• Show hideouts
• Search large areas
• Document crime scenes and can assist in the reconstruction of traffic crashes
• Real-time incident response and situational awareness
• Large events and public safety monitoring
• Post hurricane and disaster assesments
• Reduces risk to officers
• Improve traffic enforcement based on real time demand
• Access difficult areas such as our canal banks
• Better identify homeless encampments
• Better asses fires (think of the recent fire at Public Works)
• Secure dignitaries and other high profile incidents (imagine what a drone would have done if it were flying over Pennsylvania when Trump was shot while giving a speech)

Privacy Concerns:

As Miami Springs Lieutenant Robert Castillo explained, “You have an expectation of privacy from your resident and from your yard.  If the officer’s vantage point is from the sidewalk, we cannot violate that.  Now, there are exceptions to that.”  

Castillo explained those exceptions include:

• To counter high risk terror attacks
• Search warrant
• Reasonable suspicion that quick action is needed to prevent imminent danger to life or serious danger to property
• To forestall the imminent escape of a suspect or destruction of evidence
• To facilitate the search for a missing person
• To provide a law enforcement agency with an aerial perspective of 50 people or more
• To assist with traffic management
• To assist with crime scene and crash scene evidence

Now, let’s be honest.  Our backyard privacy is more likely to be violated by local commercial helicopters that are constantly flying by or even your neighbor’s kid’s drone than the Miami Springs Police drone.

Training

The department already has one officer, Mike Garcia, trained at Drone Operator School and FAA commercial drone operator licensed.  The department is selecting three more officers to be trained and licensed.

Comparing Helicopter Response Times

Councilman Fabian Perez-Crespo asked about the response times from Miami-Dade Sheriff’s helicopters.

Castillo responded, “That is also an issue…If they are in the air and available, it’s relatively fast.  Say 10-15 minutes…but they have priorities…We can utilize the drones for low priority items like scanning our canal banks for homeless encampments.”

Councilman Perez-Crespo asked if other cities were using drones.

Castillo responded, “We are behind the times.  Multiple agencies are using drones.”  Hialeah, Miami, and Miami Beach were all cited as examples of long-term drone usage.

Will Code-Enforcment Use Drones?

NO!

Code enforcement isn’t even allowed to look over your 6′ fence.

The law enforcement drones will not be used outside of the police department

What do you think?

We think this is a great tool to assist law enforcement to do their job.  Like many, we questioned why these drones were so expensive, but these aren’t your every day drones.  These drones can operate with and without GPS should systems become unavailable.  They’re made in America and designed as military grade.

We applaud the Miami Springs Police Department and the City of Miami Springs for approving this item.

What do you think?  Leave your thoughts in the comments section or via social media.