Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin tries his hand at piloting one of DroneUp's drones during a visit to the Virginia Beach company Thursday, February 10, 2022. Interim Police Chief Michael Goldsmith has suggested the Norfolk Police Department use drones as “first responders” to volatile situations in the city’s entertainment district. (Stephen M. Katz/The Virginian-Pilot)

The Norfolk Police Department is looking at adding even more “eyes” downtown to help deter violence: Drones.

Interim Police Chief Michael Goldsmith told local leaders and students at a Norfolk State University crime forum last week the department wants to use drones as “first responders” to volatile situations in the city’s entertainment district. He suggested if prospective troublemakers knew they were being watched, they would think twice about escalating an altercation.

“The end of state of this we’d like to be able to see is if somebody sees something happening they can activate a drone that comes and the drone’s very presence will stop whatever’s happening because they know that we have eyes on and can see them,” Goldsmith said at the event.

Having drones watching from above would allow officers to respond more quickly and, ideally, before violence unfolds, Goldsmith said.

But there are barriers in the way. Goldsmith cited Federal Aviation Administration regulations that create a “complicated” airspace in Norfolk, rules against flying drones above crowds, and privacy laws would need to be loosened to allow this rollout of drones to proceed.

The pitch to use drones to monitor downtown follows the city’s previous deployment this spring of an array of mobile camera units along Granby Street that mounted cameras about 20 feet in the air, with blue lights on top.

It’s unclear why police believe the additional drone surveillance is necessary. The Norfolk Police Department did not respond to multiple interview requests with Goldsmith for clarification on the city’s plan for using drones.

At the Aug. 27 event, Goldsmith said state law would have to change to allow the department to use drones in the way he envisions, which appears to go beyond the typical use of drones by law enforcement.

In some neighboring jurisdictions, including Virginia Beach, Chesapeake and Hampton, police and fire departments already use drones. These agencies see drones as a way to employ the latest technology to strengthen searches for suspects or missing people, and scout for dangers ahead of encounters with suspects, according to spokespeople from those departments.

State law generally prohibits law enforcement use of drones, or unmanned aircraft, without a search warrant. There are some exceptions, such as when an Amber, Senior, or Blue Alert has been issued; when a drone is “determined to be necessary to alleviate an immediate danger to any person;” to reconstruct the scene of a crash; to survey the residence of the subject of an arrest warrant; or to find someone sought for arrest when a person has fled from police who are in “hot pursuit.”

Matt Callahan, senior staff attorney for the Virginia chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union with a background in privacy and surveillance, said a major issue with the growing use of drones is the courts have not yet defined the limits of drone usage because the technology is relatively new.

Recording drone footage of a crowd of people raises privacy concerns for both people who may be involved in a crime and those going about their lives, Callahan said. Those concerns include whether police will keep and search footage later and whether the footage can be cross-indexed with a facial recognition database.

The ACLU does not support the police use of drones before a crime has been committed due to the inherent racial bias that often factors into predictive policing, Callahan said.

The best comparison for the privacy limitations on drones are the legalities around use of helicopters. Callahan cited a case where a helicopter dropped low enough to see into a residence and that was deemed an unlawful search because it went beyond the limits of what a typical passerby would expect to see.

“There are certainly cases of helicopters and other aerial law enforcement looking into private spaces and the courts have held, in order to do that, you would need a warrant the same as any other intrusion on reasonable expectation of privacy,” Callahan said. “So if they’re releasing these drones without a program in place to control for those violations of privacy, it’s a serious problem. It’s something that could very well be unconstitutional.”

Tony Brothers, a prominent NBA referee and owner of the Brothers restaurant who organized the NSU event at which Goldsmith spoke, has been in multiple meetings with city leadership on the question of violence downtown. He said the city is working with Virginia Beach-based DroneUp to draw up the future drone program.

“DroneUp are working with the state and federal government to try to relax some of the things that inhibit (the city) from having the drones downtown or drones anywhere,” Brothers said in an interview. “We’re really trying to figure out how to get around that.”

A spokesperson for DroneUp declined to comment this week.

The internal discussions over the use of drones have advanced to talking about cost, Brothers said, adding that the money “doesn’t seem to be an issue.” Brothers said he wants rules in place so the tools law enforcement need to keep people safe aren’t used as a “weapon.”

He dismissed concerns about privacy as coming from “the ones who are not doing what they’re supposed to do.”

“Right now they have the cameras on the pole downtown but yet we can’t put a drone that flies over,” Brothers said. “It makes no sense.”