Committee Hearing, September 29, 2023

COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA PUBLIC SAFETY COMMITTEE * * * * * * * * * PUBLIC SAFETY MEETING * * * * * * * * * BEFORE: CURTIS JONES, JR., Chair Darrell Clarke, President Kendra Brooks, Vice Chair Anthony Phillips, Member Isaiah Thomas, Member Jamie Gauthier, Member Quetcy M. Lozada, Member HEARING: Friday, September 29, 2023 2:17 p.m. LOCATION: 1400 JFK Boulevard Philadelphia, PA 19107 WITNESSES: Roxana Kennedy, Miriam Fox, Abrem Ayana, Dr. Justin Thomas, Kevin Bethel, Eric Rosa, Kiernan Carroll, Francis Healy Reporter: Kathleen Formichelli Any reproduction of this transcript is prohibited without authorization by the certifying agency I N D E X DISCUSSION AMONG PARTIES - 4 PRESENTATION 5 By Roxana Kennedy 8 - 22 6 QUESTIONS BY BOARD 22 - 40 7 PRESENTATION 8 By Abrem Ayana 41 - 57 QUESTIONS BY BOARD 57 - 60 PRESENTATION By Dr. Justin Thomas 61 - 65 QUESTIONS BY BOARD 65 - 70 PRESENTATION By Kevin Bethel 71 - 75 QUESTIONS BY BOARD 76 - 80 PRESENTATION By Eric Rosa 80 - 83 QUESTIONS BY BOARD 84 - 96 PRESENTATION By Kieran Carroll 97 - 109 QUESTIONS BY BOARD 109 - 111 PRESENTATION By Francis Healy 112 - 114 QUESTIONS BY BOARD 114 - 125 CERTIFICATE 126 E X H I B I T S Number Description Offered Exhibit 1 Document -- P R O C E E D I N G S ----------------------------------------------------- CHAIR: Good afternoon, everyone. Good afternoon everyone. This is a public hearing of the Committee on Public Safety to hear testimony on resolution number 230523. And before we get started, I want to recognize we have a quorum in the form of Member Lozada and a special guest here President Clarke, myself, Jamie Gauthier, Member Brooks, Member Phillips and Member Thomas are all here today. With that, Mr. Glass, would you please read the title of the resolution.

Yes, Mr. Chairman, resolution number 230523, authorizing the Committee on Public Safety to conduct hearings regarding use of unmanned aircraft systems, also known as drones, as an additional law enforcement tool that would enhance public safety in Philadelphia. CHAIR: Thank you, Mr. Glass. And before we start to hear the testimony, I would like to recognize President Clarke who is the author of this resolution.

Good morning. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair, members of the committee. I would just like to thank you for allowing us to have this opportunity live and in living color as it relates to this particular initiative/hearing/discussion. As you can recall, over the last several years, we've been having a lot of discussion about ways to deal with anti-violence initiatives, deal with prevention, deal with ways of trying to send the numbers down. I'd like to say and thank all individuals involved with those anti-violence initiatives by members of our community, all people that have been engaged. I'd like to thank the Philadelphia police, I'd like to thank all public safety officials. I'd like to thank this council. We are trending down, which is a good thing. But at a point in time when we feel comfortable with 450 homicides a year, then we've already lost. So the simple realty is that during that course of discussion we've had many conversations about all aspects of trying to deal with violence in the City of Philadelphia, be it prevention, enforcement, or just simply providing resources to people that ultimately with an intersection of the criminal justice system if they don't get the appropriate attention. So today thank you for having this hearing so we can talk about the use of technology, something that has been discussed. The City of Philadelphia, with funding from City council and implementation of the administration side has put a series of camera initiatives. As you recall, council members, we stood in front of Bartram High and talked about putting cameras around commercial corridors. We stood in front of recreation centers to make sure and the hope is to prevent any type of criminal activity. Unfortunately, from time to time, such as happened in your district, Councilman, in Roxborough and actually happened in my district. A week and a half after we put a camera at the Tenth and Oxford playground, we had an unfortunate incident. So this is just another phase and another potential tool that can be used to help prevent crime and to assist our law enforcement officers in dealing with any particular incident, but I keep emphasizing the fact that prevention is always our preference. Had a conversation with Chief Bethel earlier on, and he told me about a very exciting initiative about utilizing technology and particularly feel good about what he's done because it involves the young people of the Philadelphia School District, which I think is a key part of what we're proposing. So thank you all, Mr. Chair and we'll have some good conversation and, I believe a couple of presentations on terms of the technology that could potentially be used to help us prevent crime in the City of Philadelphia. CHAIR: Thank you, Mr. President, for your willingness to go farther than the borders of this city to find resources for this city. We have traveled, you have traveled more extensively than most, but took us along with you to look at what other cities are doing and look at best practices. So I want to thank you publicly for that. Are there any other members of the committee would like to make an opening statement? Seeing none. Mr. Glass, who is the first panel to testify?

Mr. Chairman, our first panel is Roxanna Kennedy, the Chief of Police of the Chula Vista Police Department, Abrem Ayana, police lieutenant in the Brookhaven Police Department and Dr. Justin Thomas, director of controls of Exyn Technologies. CHAIR: Thank you all. Would you approach the witness table? And thank you for coming to the City of Philadelphia, city of brotherly love and sisterly effectiveness.

Mr. Chairman, our first witness, Roxanna Kennedy, is on the screen. CHAIR: Oh, well, thank you for not coming.

Well, thank you. Good afternoon, Philadelphia. I would love to have been there, but I'm back in San Diego, California. So a little bit about me. My name is Roxanna Kennedy. I'm the chief of police for the Chula Vista Police Department. And it is truly an honor to have been invited to be a speaker at the Philadelphia City Council Committee on Public Safety. A little bit about myself. I've been in law enforcement for 31 years. I have worked myself up through the ranks at Chula Vista Police Department from officer to chief of police. And in December, I will have served as a Chief of Police for seven years. I currently serve as president of the San Diego County Chief and Sheriff's Association and have for the past four years. And this past March, I was honored to testify in Congress on our UAS drone program. And I sit on the FAA's Counter Drone Committee as a co-lead of one of the working groups. And I'm also very honored that this March, I will be the keynote speaker at the World Police Summit in Dubai, talking about the future of drones and what we're doing. I'm also a Part 107 drone pilot, and I am very honored also to have with me here today Captain Miriam Fox. She oversees our drone program, and she'll be available for questions as well. So, next slide. Before I begin, I'd first like to point out for the record that I do not consider myself a drone or a technology expert. Yes, I know much more than the average person. However, what I'm here to share with you today is the value of drones and why they are an invaluable asset to public safety and how they're here for the good, for our community. In police work it's important for you to understand that we don't have a crystal ball, so we cannot prepare in advance for what we'll encounter. We leave so much to chance in policing, and there can be unpredictable consequences. For the past five years Chula Vista Police Department has blazed a path that I never imagined when I was appointed chief almost seven years ago. You see, the story about drones for good is not a technical or regulatory story. It's a story about the positive impact of technology on people's lives. People will only trust technology when they have a voice in its use and can see the direct benefits that impact their lives and communities. Now, Chula Vista Police Department is a world class drone program. Where is Chula Vista? As you'll see on the slide, a little bit about my city. We are on the other side of the United States, so it does take a while to get to Philadelphia. The City of Chula Vista is located in San Diego County in Southern California, and we are the second largest city in our county. We're 52 square miles and just 7 miles north of the Mexico border. We have 289 sworn officers, a total of 450 staff with civilians and volunteers. And here's something interesting. We are one of the lowest staffed agencies in the State of California, and that's really important because it requires us to be creative with how we provide public safety. Staffing, as you know, is critical for all police agencies right now. And I am certain Philadelphia is struggling, as we all are, to recruit and retain officers. This is my story as a police chief and why we implemented DFR at Chula Vista Police Department. And you need to understand, as I'm certain in Philadelphia, safety has always been a priority for us in law enforcement, and especially me and Chula Vista. So, next slide. It started with the riot. And that might sound kind of funny, but before I became a chief of police in 2016, a local agency in San Diego had an officer involved shooting that erupted into days of protests that turned into riots. And we've seen how this can happen and what it does to a community. I came back to work after observing four days of rioting and the challenges that this agency faced and I learned a lot. And it made me consider, how do we provide our officers with more information as they respond to these uncertain calls?

I met with my watch commanders, and they proposed a pilot program to use patrol officers as plain clothes scouting team. These officers would focus on getting to high risk calls in undercover cars and provide live intelligence and tactical advice to responding officers. We called them Sarah Officers and they would not intervene in the call except for an emergency. The concept was to assess the situation and provide better intelligence to responding officers. The hope was that better tactics would lead to better outcomes. This intelligence from a seasoned officer could then be used to provide an appropriate response. The Sarah Officer was a great de-escalation tool, but not a sustainable model in the long term due to staffing challenges. That's how we started discussing what if we use drones for the same purpose and really the rest is history. We're going to watch two short videos and remember these are from 2018 and so technology was a little different in 2018, but they illustrate the importance of drones and how they can benefit you in your community. Next slide. So this is really a leadership moment in my mind. There we go. We made it. Technology is always fun too, right? This was a big a-ha moment for me. It was when it all started to make sense to me. This was the first big success that we had and it was a disturbance call where a car was driving erratically, chasing a motorcycle and you'll see in just one minute. Keep in mind that when you watch this video there were no patrol officers available. Every single unit was tied up on priority calls for service. So we sent a drone and it was actually my watch commander that was one of the drone pilots that you'll hear in this video. And this is what we saw. So this driver is driving on the wrong side of the road. This is right near a school, a very congested area and we had no one to respond. You can hear them saying, is there any unit that can break? So as this continues on, you'll see that there's an argument that's occurring and it was evidence that it was a domestic violence type situation that was occurring here. But this person was not giving up and the person in the car was adamant. And as this proceeds you'll see that she will take that car and ram the gentleman on the motorcycle. And the whole time we're trying to get officers there, but everyone's on emergency calls. In all cases in law enforcement you would think the person would walk away so they would be safe. But unfortunately this individual comes back and then it continues and then she rams him again with the car. So as a chief, this would be a case that we would have never got to. And to me, the important thing with this drone program is that the drone pilots are getting information for us. This case went forward to the judge. She was arrested for assault with a deadly weapon and a domestic violence. And the other individual on the motorcycle, this is law enforcement, was a stolen motorcycle. And that's actually what she was mad about. And he was arrested too. So in this case, the judge indicated that the only way this case would have moved forward was because of the fact that we had the video footage of it. Otherwise it would have been a he said/she said type situation. The next video that I want to show you that was really, for me, the very important case that --- could you imagine a call coming out of a man with a gun waving it around in front of a restaurant? People are calling in to dispatch. They're frightened. This is an area --- Chula Vista is 60 percent Hispanic in our community there. There was Spanish speakers calling in. Thank goodness we have dispatchers that speak Spanish as well as our drone pilot. They hear a man waving a gun around. Everyone's upset. People are kind of running and moving around. They don't know other people are walking by like it's nothing going on. We don't know if he's mentally ill, if he's under the influence. We're just not certain what's happening.

The pilot, you can play the video, respond in a minute and a half. So you can imagine the tactics and the concern as officers are responding to a call with a man with a gun in front of a restaurant. So he's just sitting there. At some point, another man walks up, he's talking to him. It just doesn't make complete sense to us. And we know there have been national tragedies where people respond to calls like this. And the importance of the drone is that we're able to get more information so that the officers can make better decisions. A man with a gun, they would come up with a strategy of how they would approach and from what area. And they can see this. My officers can see this on their cell phones and on their mobile data computer. Before they get there, they can get the picture of what's happening. You'll see, he put the gun up to his mouth. At first, we didn't know what he was going to do with that gun. Like, would we be watching someone commit suicide in front of us? But then he takes that gun and he lights a cigarette. So it's not a gun, it's a lighter. And that in itself changes the whole response. And when you can actually see the puffs of smoke all that information is being fed to my officers as they respond. And you see, they respond and they're vigilant and they're careful, but they're not responding, pointing their gun. They're prepared. This individual was definitely under the influence and had something that appeared like a gun. And as I mentioned before, we've seen those national tragedies where someone has mistaken a toy gun for a real gun, and it ends up tragically. So on this slide, I just wanted to give you a picture, and I know the lieutenant who's with us from Brookhaven will kind of give you the technical and the tactical details of the program. I'm just trying to give you an overview for you to understand. We're 52 square miles. We have four different launch sites that we fly from, and we're able to have complete city coverage. Approximately 95 percent of our city has drone as first responder coverage. These drones are responding to actual calls for service, a need for police assistance. And so as people say, oh, well, why do you have drones only in this one area? We move forward having drones have complete coverage, so no one in our city feels like they're left out. We want to make sure that everybody, no one feels marginalized, that we have complete coverage of our city. Next slide. And also we provide dashboards to our community so our community can go online. They can see that we're very transparent of how we're using our drone program. We update these dashboards every hours, and as of today, you'll see 6 that we are almost at 17,000 flights right now, and 7 that's over five years. And an important factor is of 8 the calls that our drone is first responders respond 9 to, 23 percent of those calls are cleared by drones 10 without the need to send a patrol officer. They 11 respond to these calls, and sometimes they determine 12 that there's really not a police need there, or that 13 the loud party or the incident has stopped and there's 14 no need for police to respond there. Twenty-three 15 (23) percent of our calls were able to clear without a 16 uniformed officer responding in a patrol car. 17 On average, our response time for our 18 drone to be first on scene is about a minute and a 19 half. And we know that on average, oftentimes it 20 takes much longer for a marked unit to get there 21 because of traffic and all the issues that we face 22 driving on the roads to get to a location. So a 23 minute and a half can provide invaluable information. 24 Next slide. When you look at our response times, I know that's important to anyone. Over the past five years, when you average out all the calls our drones have responded to, it takes us half the time to respond with a drone to priority one and priority two calls for service. DFR cuts the response time down for us in Chula Vista by 50 percent or less.

And that means that we're getting to those calls quicker to help people with whatever their issue is. Next slide. And this is where transparency really comes into play. And I think it's important and I make the recommendation to anyone to have these types of dashboards so that your community, when they have questions or concerns, when they see a drone in the air, they think that drone is a police drone. And there are many people out there flying drones right now that are not related to law enforcement. And so this gives them a map of where we responded. So we provide for the community flight maps to show the pathway of each drone flight, the date, the time, the case number, the location, and the reason for the call. As you'll see up in the left-hand corner, there is a route of a call in search of a missing child. And so we think that's really important for the community to know. And they can also talk to any of our UAS pilots by sending us an email and asking questions as well, or the phone calls that come in. We make sure that we're very responsive to our community because without community support, this program would not work. Next slide. So as you look at this and what's important to your community and to your police department, do you want your officers to have real time information? We know the work we are doing is laying the foundation for other agencies and drone programs throughout the country and the world. And we are doing our best to help others realize the benefits of drones for good. Our program runs approximately a million and a half to $2 million and it covers one drone lieutenant. We have a drone sergeant assigned. We have two sworn drone as first responder officers, pilots, and it's kind of technical. And we also have pilots in command on our rooftop. That will change down the road with technology changes and things will be more automated. But right now we have drone 20 operators. 21 And there's two types of drone programs. 22 There's the proactive drone program like we have with 23 DFR, and then there are tactical drones that we also 24 have that do crime mapping, accident reconstruction. 25 They can go, we call them drone in a trunk. Those drones can respond to a missing child, to a car that goes off the side of a cliff. So we have a very robust program, but it's important for you to understand that with these drones, transparency for the community and making sure that your community supports it. And funding doesn't always start in the beginning, we started off with funding through our police foundation and then we were able to showcase to our city council and to our community the value of the drone program. And then it ended up with us being able to be funded for that. Next slide. I just wanted to leave you --- I know my time is limited and there's a lot to share and not enough time to go into great detail. But I wanted to leave you with a couple links that you could refer to for more information. The first link is of my congressional testimony for the FAA reauthorization where I spoke about the importance of the use of drones in public safety and how they benefit the American people. And then the second link is to my agency's website. Here you will see our DFR dashboard and flight information. And our website is an important, vital way that we keep our community current and up to date on our drone program. So these things are very important. Next slide. And as I end today, what I want to leave you with is the story of DFR is more amazing than I could have ever imagined less than five years ago. I've seen hundreds of videos where our officers were able to use live streamed drone footage to make life and death tactical decisions. And I cannot imagine our patrol operations without drones. DFR does not replace officers. It enhances the safety officers of the community and of the subjects that we encounter. Drones are one of the best de-escalation tools that we have.

It takes a lot of trial and error from a technical standpoint to support a robust drone program. A culture of safety, adherence to rules and regulations, and attention to detail are what makes safe flight possible. What was a payoff for all this risk, you may ask? Why would a police agency stake its reputation on a pilot program? Because a reward, saving lives and making our community safer is worth measured risk and sacrifice. Thank you for allowing us to share our story today, and I will be available at the end for questions. CHAIR: So, first of all, thank you for your insightful testimony. We usually wait until the panels, but because you're distanced, we will ask questions right away. And I'd like to, before I turn over to Mike, ask, you mentioned tactical drones and proactive drones. Briefly tell me what the difference is in particular, cost and capability.

So when I use the term proactive drones, those are drones that are responding to actual calls for service. So we don't randomly patrol. We don't do what some might say is surveillance, right? We respond to actual calls for service. When the community calls and needs us, we will use a drone, but we don't randomly patrol through our city. That's just a decision we made at our department and that we worked with our community because, remember, we started over five years ago and drones were not common. So we call it the crawl, walk, run phase, and we're still at the end of the crawl phase right now. So the DFR drone is a proactive drone that is a larger drone that responds to calls for service. Tactical drones we call reactive because they're after the fact, right? Those drones are sometimes officers will put them in the trunk of their car, the drone officers, and they will respond to the scene. After an incident has occurred, they'll pull out their drone. They might need to get --- you might have a subject that's just robbed a location, for instance, and they believe the suspect is in the general area. And so you might have that tactical drone that's up searching that area. If it's an alleyway or it's off the side of a cliff, and they're down in a part of terrain that's hard to see, you might send a tactical drone in the what I also call tactical drones. Remember in Philadelphia, they might not call them that. I'm not certain what their terminology is there, but some of the drones will do --- when you have an accident scene and the traffic officers are out there as quickly as possible, trying to get the cars off the roadway and get traffic back moving regularly, tactical drones can go in and prime map that whole traffic scene and do it quickly, much quicker than we could have done manually. Sometimes you could have a road closed for hours upon end. These drones can prime map it quickly and take aerial pictures, and they can pinpoint with the actual degrees of how far it is from this location. We call it the POIs point of entry, point of impact. And they can do that. There's so many things. We have drones that go inside buildings that can deliver a phone when you're doing a hostage situation, and they can deliver a phone and go in and have collision avoidance. It's amazing, the technology. I mean, when I think back, they didn't even have body one camera. We didn't have computers when I started 31 years ago, it was very, very different. So these drones are amazing. And so understanding the difference is important, because a DFR program is going to be completely different than it is for a tactical program. Drones can range from $2,000 up to a couple of hundred thousand dollars. The drones that we use in Chula Vista for a DFR program are DJI drones. They run around $25,000 to $30,000 apiece. And we do have some other drones. The best part of the drone and the most important part of the drone, of course, is safety. But the camera is what feeds us the information so that we can make better decisions. It's up to each organization to determine what the best use is. We are hopeful down the road that we're going to have more options. But this is new. It's still relatively new technology. CHAIR: Are we connected? Okay.

Yes, I hear you. CHAIR: Are there members of the committee who have questions? President?

Thank you, Mr. Chair. And thank you for joining us this afternoon on the presentation. Wanted to start out by saying municipalities, states are all different, As you obviously know, parts of the country. City of Philadelphia, we have a significant level of community participation in all aspects. We have a police oversight committee. We have all types of organizations where we interact with the police department. The legislative body is deeply engrossed in policy. In your municipality as it relates to the implementation of the program, first, was there a policy of drone usage established within the department? And not necessarily just the flyovers, but the actual end portion of it as a result of calling in an officer in based on what the drone saw. And the second part is in terms of community participation and buy in, because I noticed you talked about transparency, which is obviously important. Was there something established as you all implemented this program to get community buy in for drone uses? Because I can recall many years ago, it was a significant fight here in the city council. I think I might have been only member here at the time when people didn't think we should use cameras throughout the City of Philadelphia. So did you have --- like, what's the early phases of this particular program?

So thank you. Yes, before we flew one drone, we started back in actually 2015, having community focus groups. We contact the ACLU. We started just reaching out, doing a lot of reach out to the community to see what the interest was in the community. Because as I mentioned, it was brand new technology. It was something that sounded --- you know, I joke a lot and I laugh because when they brought this to my attention years ago, I thought they were crazy. I said, what is this George Jetson stuff? You're talking about drones flying in the sky. It made absolutely no sense to me. But as we started talking about it and we started looking at these things and I started understanding the value for our officers and for our community and honestly, for the subjects that we encounter, we had to start moving forward and looking into this further. The community was very responsive. We have not had all positive community input. Some people, as you mentioned, do not like anything --- they think, anything that has a camera, whether or not --- you know, outside there is no expectation of privacy. But they were very concerned about it. People would say, what are you going to do if --- one of the main things was if I'm smoking marijuana in my backyard and I'm like you're in California, but whatever, we'll let that go, right? But we don't --- we're very careful about the policy that we have in terms of privacy. And so it's stipulated very clearly in our policy, and we've done a lot of outreach about that we are not going to use our drones to go hover in someone's window. Our drones fly from 150 to 400 feet. They're very high in the sky, and we are very careful about how we utilize them. That's one of the reasons why we have the flight map. That flight map shows where we went. And I'll tell you another thing that came from the community. And the concern was they thought, as we went out with our drone that, of course, once the drone takes off, the camera will key in miles down the road. So the drone can get to the scene way before the drone --- the drone camera gets to the scene way before the drone gets there. Right? And it's feeding us information as we're responding. Right? But then the question was, as the drone returns home, are you just willy-nilly looking around in people's yards and trying to find something? Right? So as a way to listen to what our community said, we had it built into the system through our software program that as the drone returns home, the drone does a lift towards the sky. So it never is turned off, but it's filming the sky as it returns back. And that seemed to --- as we've done this and as we've worked with the community and as we've listened to them, we built more and more confidence over time because it's really about --- I tell my officers, when you invest in the community, they invest in you. And we're seeing the results of that right now. We listen to our community. And I've had the ACLU, I've had the Electronic Frontier Foundation I've bought in, and they just did a white paper on our --- ACLU, did a white paper on our department because we don't have anything to hide. Come into our department and see what we're doing. We want to hear feedback. If there's a better way of doing something, let us know what that is, because we are doing the best that we can. But I'm telling you, when you engage the community, you definitely will get input. But once they come in and see for themselves, I think that's when they really start to realize that we're actually trying to do the right thing to protect them, our community, and our children.

Thank you. CHAIR: Thank you, Mr. President. Chair recognizes Member Gauthier.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you so much, Chief, for being in this hearing and for sharing your work with us. It was really interesting and informative to hear about how your locality is using drones and you gave a few examples of how they worked really well and helped to extend your officer's capacity. I was wondering if you could sort of give us a list of the pros and the cons. Are there examples or instances where the usage of a drone didn't work as you would expect or didn't help? And I just wanted to be able to sort of weigh from your experience the positives and any drawbacks since you've been using this system.

Thank you. Yes, technology is a huge benefit and also a huge challenge. And we have definitely had experiences where we get the drone out there and then the battery life is gone and we have to return the drone right away. We've been able to get waivers through the FAA where we could have more than two drones at a location. So you can trade out. So there's workarounds to a lot of it. I mean, one of the challenges is right now with the requirements, where we have a pilot that is in the operations center flying, and then we have a pilot on the rooftop that we're required to because of the FAA requirements, it's double the cost. Okay. So we started off having all sworn officers, right? Because there is a need, in our opinion, and everyone may have a differing opinion. The police officer understands the way officers respond, and they understand where to place officers, and they're kind of like an incident commander from the sky as they overwatch what's happening, which is very helpful. The pilot in control on a rooftop, we contract out with another company that is not sworn, so they take control. They have to have visual awareness of the sky. And so if we had an officer there, that would cost too much, plus they get bored, just to tell you the honest truth there. So we were able to contract with the company, and that's been very successful. We're hopeful down the road there will be what's called like, drone in a box that will be able to be stationed throughout. For instance, fire departments are strategically placed throughout cities, and they could be stationed on rooftops of fire departments, and they could deploy from there. There's so much, there's so much. I would be on here for a long time telling you the pros and the cons, and that's what we do, is we have people come to our department. It costs us a lot of money, but we think it's important that we share what has worked in the challenges that we've had, the mishaps that we've had, the things that we could do better because we believe in this so much we don't want people to start at the bottom. We want them to start at the top with the program.

Just a couple more questions. Has there ever been an instance where the use of a drone, beyond sort of battery failure, hindered, sort of your response, or was not helpful? And then secondly, can you give us the total cost of this program for your city?

Yes. And so I have Captain Fox on, and she's shaking her head no, because she's the one who runs the operations of the program. But I do believe I'm not aware of any hindrance from a drone whatsoever. In terms of cost right now, we were very blessed in our community to have a tax measure that went through that supports public safety, and so that has helped us be able to support the program. As I mentioned before, it's about a million and a half to $2 million for us to run the program that we have. And we're flying seven days a week, but we fly from, I believe it's like around --- is it 9:00 or 10:00, Miriam?

We fly until sunset, seven days in a week, and then on the weekends until midnight.

So we're not flying 24/7 at this point yet. There are thermal cameras that it would benefit us tremendously. I know our officers want it, but from a fiscal standpoint, we're still in the position right now where we're showing the value of our program and it will build out as we continue.

Thank you.

Thank you. CHAIR: Thank you, Member. Chair recognizes Member Lozada and then we'll go to Member Brooks.

Hi, thank you for your testimony today. I just have a really quick question. In your testimony, you mentioned that you all formed partnerships with some of the business community. And I was just wondering, what does that partnership entail, if you can tell us a little bit more about that? And was there ever concern expressed from some of these businesses along those commercial corridors of retaliation since they have partnered with the community or with the police department as a launch site?

So we fly from the police department, then we fly from Bayview Hospital, which is a mental facility here in our community. We fly from Sharp hospital, and then we fly from the Ayres Hotel, which is out in our eastern portion of our city. We pay no 4 fee to them. They've all done this because they want to be a part of it and they believe in it. We are on their rooftops of their buildings, and they're strategically placed in areas that give us the coverage that we need. My recommendation, whenever you work with anyone in the community, there's been no 11 retaliation, there's been no problems whatsoever that I'm aware of. But if you work with them, you have to be aware that you're on, for instance, their rooftop, and you need to take special consideration to protect their rooftop. We put down matting and special things up there to make certain that we don't destroy any of their area, their roof or anything like that. That would be my request. When you contract with other companies, sometimes they don't pay as close attention to the details as, for instance, myself or Captain Fox might. And I would always take that in consideration. You would never want to do anything that would create a negative opinion of how you're running a program, especially when you have the support of your community.

Thank you.

Thank you. CHAIR: Thank you, Member. Chair recognizes Member Brooks.

Good afternoon. Council member Gauthier asked about the cost. So for the drone operators, 12 did you train them internally or did you have to do a 13 hiring process to fill those roles? And is it a 14 technical component to it that would prevent existing 15 officers to be able to patrol or operate drones? 16

17 So it's a competitive process here. 18 They're all sworn --- the piloting command, the ones 19 on the rooftops are contracted, so they're not 20 officers. But all the drone operators at the PD are 21 sworn officers that go through a competitive process 22 to become a drone operator. Then they have to go 23 through the FAA part 107 certification, and it's 24 rigorous. And you have to go to a course. The course 25 is put on by some regional academies here, and we send them to that. It's a one-week course. I went through it myself. And they have to keep up. So every two years, we have to recertify and take another test. And it's pretty rigorous, I have to say.

So is that included in the $1.5 to $2 million cost that you mentioned?

No, that would be a part of our regular training budget that we have. So the cost for the part 107 test, Miriam, is it like $150 or something like that?

Yes, it's not much. It's maybe $400 for the course. It's very minimal. We'll host the course and invite other agencies, and they will get free spots. But again, that training, the initial training is only the one-time cost. And then there's the monthly training that you would do eight hours a day, once a month for your pilot. So it's very minimal cost. The cost for the program was the salary cost of staffing.

So to add further, we absorb into our training budget, we absorb the monthly training. We absorb the cost to go to the school as a part of our training budget, and we've been able to talk with our city leadership and get them to increase that training budget to compensate for that, but it's not significant. The $1.5 million is the salary for the contractors that are on our rooftops, as well as for the cost of the drones and then the sergeant, the lieutenant, and the two pilots that are in our operations center.

Thank you so much. CHAIR: Thank you, Member. Real two quick questions. One, in Philadelphia, I don't know if it's true in your part of the country, we have had a problem with dirt bikes, and there is a safety question of whether patrol cars should actually chase them, apprehend them in urban areas. Have you had an occasion to follow dirt bikes or other vehicles from a safe distance to be able to apprehend them?

So can you hear me? CHAIR: No. Go ahead.

Okay. It was freezing up a little bit, but I think I got the gist of what you said it was about dirt bikes and would it benefit to use drones. And the answer is yes. We don't have that type of a situation in our community, but we do have street racers. And so ---. CHAIR: You froze. Can you hear us? Okay.

Are you able to hear me? I'm sorry. CHAIR: You stopped at street racers?

Yes. It looks like the chief's camera froze. What she was going to refer is we do have street racers. We don't have ATVs or takeovers. I'm from the east coast. I am aware of that, but we don't have that. But we do have street racers, and the drones can be assisted in providing that intelligence to the officers from above. Again, it's trying to figure out when that occurs. Out here when we do have the street racing takeovers, they do it over like WhatsApp? They try not to put it on social media because they know that we can monitor that stuff if it's open source. So if it's available, we can provide that information to the officers on ground and kind of figure out how they can stop us. But we don't have it on the scale that we see on the East Coast. CHAIR: And the final question I would have, have they been used in live fire situations where they were on the scene, where they might have been hit by ordinance and what happens then?

So we have not got the --- and thank God, we have not had that situation where there's been some sort of active shooting situation where that happens. All of our drones are equipped with parachutes, and the parachutes can be manually deployed by pressing a button or automatically deployed when they decelerate. So if our drone is affected by someone possibly shooting on it and the drone recognizes --- the system will recognize that there's a fast deceleration, the parachute will deploy. CHAIR: Okay. Are there any other questions for this panel? Member Phillips? Anyone? Seeing none, thank you for your testimony, and we appreciate your contribution to our deliberations about drone usage. Thank you so much.

You're welcome. CHAIR: Mr. Glass.

Mr. Chairman, our next witness is Abrem Ayana from the Brookhaven Police Department. CHAIR: Are we connected?

Yes, sir. Can you hear me? CHAIR: Yes, we can. Welcome. Thank you for your testimony.

Yes. Good afternoon. I am Lieutenant Abrem Ayana. I am the UAS Program Manager for the Brookhaven, Georgia Police Department. If you're wondering where Brookhaven, Georgia is, we are a suburb of the City of Atlanta, home of the 2023 NL East Champion Atlanta Braves. I had to say that because you all are Philadelphia Philly fans, I suppose. I am actually joining you all today from Chief Kennedy and Captain Fox's home state of California. I've had the opportunity since starting this drone program back in 2020 to travel not only the State of Georgia, but our nation, delivering presentations on the drone program. And those travels have brought me to California this week to speak to the International Municipal Lawyers Association, where I actually had the opportunity to meet several of your deputy city solicitors from Philadelphia who attended a couple of law enforcement breakout sessions that I led. I've also had the opportunity to deliver this presentation or similar presentation to the International Association of Chiefs of the Police, the Israeli National Police, the German Police, and several other international police organizations. None of it would be possible without the partnership from Chief Kennedy, Captain Fox, and the entire Chula Vista Police Department team. And so I appreciate them for their partnership. I tell people all the time as I travel that law enforcement is only as good as the partnerships and the relationships that we have. And we were able to launch our drone program in a time period of --- time span of about five to six months, primarily because of the partnership and the advice that we received from them several years ago when we launched our program. So to give you all a little bit of idea about the origins of our drone program, we previously relied exclusively on outside agencies for aerial support. Our city is the city of approximately 9 square miles, a little bit over 65,000 residents. So 10 it's a lot of folks in a small space. We are a suburb 11 of Atlanta that is wholly encircled by 285. So when 12 you think of suburbs, I tell people I'm born and raised in the City of Atlanta. You're from the suburbs if you came from outside of 285, inside the perimeters, we call it that's the city. And so the City of Brookhaven is entirely encircled by the bypass of 285 inside the perimeter. And so we do deal with a lot of the same crime concerns that you would see in a large city like Atlanta and Philadelphia, but not the exact same --- can you all hear me? CHAIR: Yes.

Okay, sorry. I had some feedback. So in April 2022, we began researching the use of drones and public safety. We learned about the Chula Vista DFR program that was a part of the integration pilot partnership with the FAA. And then in October 2020, our program gained the full support of our mayor and council and we launched our first flight in April of 2021. I want to talk to you all very briefly about the capabilities and the limitations of drone first responder. As Chief Kennedy hit on this point earlier about the drones that we use, in order to make DFR scalable, our agencies are relying on consumer drones. Those drones range anywhere from $6,000 to $7,000 upwards to the $20,000 to $30,000 when you start adding on the cameras. The most widely used drones in drone first responder today are capable of flight times up to an average of about 40 minutes, depending on the distance that you fly the drone out, with average speeds of 30 to 35 miles per hour. So you can imagine going 30, 35 miles per hour in a straight line, not having to stop at red lights. We can actually be pretty efficient. And presently, agencies operating drone first responder have gained FAA authorization to operate aircraft up to three mile radius from their launch locations. Drones --- to give you a little bit of technical background about drones are broken down into three groups. You have your micro UAS, and that's the small drones that you often see in the Hollywood movies that fit in like the size of somebody's fingertip. 55 pounds. Then you move up into the small UAS category, which is what we operate in public safety. 55 pounds up to, but not including 55 pounds. And then you have your large drone category over 55 pounds. And that's typically what you see the military using with their Reapers and the such. There are three different types of drones. You have your multirotor drones. Those drones require significant fuel or battery power. That's why they're limited to that 30 to 40 minute flight time oftentimes. All of the lift on those drones come from propulsion. But those drones do require only a small launch and recovery area. That's why we're able to make them work on the rooftop of buildings. And they also have the ability to just stay and hover in one space. Then you can move over into your fixed wing. Those fixed wing aircraft, just like the Reaper, require less battery or fuel. They have longer flight times, significant lift coming from the wings. They require a much larger launch and recovery area. So you see a lot of those drones using airfields and requiring runways, and they don't have the ability to hover in one spot. And then the last category, which you see a lot more coming online now, are the vertical takeoff and landing, the VTOL. The VTOL aircraft require a small launch and recovery area. They're very flexible, they have a long flight duration, a lot of very capable payloads, similar to our multirotor aircraft with the cameras. They have hybrid energy sources, so you see a lot of battery power, but they also have some that are hydrogen powered and have other alternative fuel sources and they're actually getting a lot more affordable. So we're starting to see these drones being marketed to law enforcement and public safety, and they're starting around the area of about $130,000. So to give you all the background, some operational considerations for our police department, what I often tell people, and the most common question I get is do drones reduce crime? And I'm very, very, very transparent that drones for us are not a crime control strategy. And Chief Kennedy gave you a very, very big open window to how they use drones in Chula Vista and we do it the same exact way. We don't have drones up in the air patrolling our cities in hopes of catching somebody in the act of doing a crime or looking like they're going to do a crime. We're not doing proactive policing. It is completely an emergency response tool or strategy.

The drones are not positioned in neighborhoods or areas based on crime stats. We are placing our drones solely in the areas that have the highest call volume. So we know that the drone is going to do work because people are going to call 911 in those areas. Where that strategy helps us is when a civic group or civil liberties group comes and says, the Brookhaven Police Department has only placed drones in areas with the minority communities or low socioeconomic communities. We don't have to have that conversation because we placed our drones specifically in areas where people call 911. If they want to do the digging and they want to try to make the comparison and say, oh, well, it just so happens that the areas that people call 911 are the areas where they have the predominant minority communities. That is not something that we have decided based on race or any of those other socioeconomic factors. It is solely dependent on where people call 911 the most. And this is the most important piece about that, because we know that through the use of these drones, by doing it that way, we're able to get eyes on any type of situation occurring in those areas in less than two minutes. The lowest response time we've ever had for our drones for a month was 43 seconds in March of this year. And so I like to tell my citizens, and they'll take this proposition any day of the time --- any day of the week, that if you call 911 in the City of Brookhaven and I could tell you that we will have a drone over your emergency in less than 120 seconds over 95 percent of the time. And in the month of March, we had it there in less than 60 seconds, they take that proposition 100 percent of the time. By taking this approach, we're able to reduce unnecessary dispatches of officers to calls that don't require a police response. By removing these calls from patrol officers daily activity, we're putting time back in their workday to patrol and actively do the things that actually do reduce crime. And so when you talk about, hey, have you seen a reduction in crime from your drone program? The reduction in crime is not because people know the drones are flying. The reduction in crime is because the patrol officers have time to go out and actually do proactive police work and be on patrol preventing crime. And so my city, we have over 150 license plate readers that we have access to track stolen vehicles and warned felons who come into our city. So there's the whole wraparound of technology that allow us to be successful in combating crime. But the true reality is, if we don't have patrol officers on the ground who are able to respond when that stolen vehicle hits an LPR, or that wanted felon hits an LPR, then they get away 100 percent of the time. And so by having these drones readily able to respond and clear those costs of service that don't require police response, it allows us to have those patrol officers available. I've got displayed a graphic that shows exactly how we made the determination where to place our drones. The image to the left, the graphic to the left, is a heat map of our citizen initiated calls for service. This is where the citizens in the City of Brookhaven called the police the most. And those two red stars signify my two launch locations in the City of Brookhaven. With those two locations, I can cover about 65 percent to 70 percent of the city. What you don't see is to the northeast of that map is an airport, Peachtree-Dekalb Airport, which is the busiest general aviation airport in the southeastern United States. So all of Atlanta's private jet traffic for all of the Fortune 500 companies, the tourist flights, the Medevac helicopters fly, and the local media fly out of that airport. So it's constant aircraft moving through our city's airspace. And so there are some areas that we're restricted from flying that if we needed to fly a drone, we would have to pick up the phone and call DC to get permission.

The northern area of the city where you don't see a lot of heat or a lot of cost of service, we don't place drones there. And it's as simple as, because we don't have a lot of cost of service, there's not a lot of crime that occurs there. Those are areas that we don't have a large demand for police service. And so for us, it doesn't make business sense for us to put a third launch location there. The map to the left is where our field officers are actually initiating their patrol activity. So where they're doing a lot of their proactive policing. And those areas you see that those two maps, while they are different, they're eerily similar. And those launch locations strategically placed based on those costs of service, allow us to respond in support officers on the ground who are doing proactive police work and need assistance in addition to citizens who call 911. So I've got a couple of use case videos I want to show you all to give you all a little idea of how this works. This first video is a run of the mill call that a police officer will respond to. Someone calls and says, hey, there's a gentleman who's drunk and indecent at the Waffle House. The drone responds, gets on that scene in about 40 seconds, and identifies the individual that they called 911 on. He's no longer at the Waffle House. He's actually across the street at the Dunkin' Donuts. Our response time in Brookhaven to emergencies is less than four and a half minutes, an overwhelming amount of the time. Without lights and sirens, we do have a lot of traffic. It would take a patrol officer, on average 10 to 14 minutes potentially, to respond to this low acuity call. The drone is there, is able to direct the officer directly to where this individual is, is able to observe if any altercation takes place, or if there's any need to increase the urgency of this call. You see he stumbles into a car. At any moment some physical confrontation could have ensued, but it didn't. And as a result, the officer was able to go directly to where this individual was without driving around in search of them. And so you say this is a fairly routine call. This is what officers do every day. But the flip side of this and you may experience this in your city is a lot of times when officers finally get to the location where the call came from or where the incident occurred, the problem is no longer there. It has relocated. And what happens oftentimes the citizens grow the opinion that the police never responded because I never saw them, and this individual is now at the Dunkin' Donuts, creating a disturbance. The Brookhaven Police Department is ineffective in their duties, and the reality is, we're not ineffective. We just went to the place you told us he was, and we didn't find him. And that contributes to a negative perception of police that we're not out actually serving communities. And that's where you get folks saying, I called 911 and the police never showed up. Through the use of the drone, we able to exactly pinpoint where that individual was. This next video, and individual goes into a local Publix and shoplifts. And I'll let you listen and watch this video. ) ---

And so what I often tell people when I show that video is the 911 caller provided us one description of this individual. once he departed a location, you saw he changed clothes. The drone, by being able to respond in such a quick fashion, was able to locate him in a neighborhood that was down the street and a little bit off the beaten path where he was changing clothes. He had already removed the items from the Publix shopping cart, and when the officer responded, the officer didn't have to question, hey, am I pulling out with the right individual? The officer was informed because we had real live situational awareness of what was occurring before the officer ever responded. And then the last video I'll show you all occurred in May of last year, a vehicle that was used in an armed robbery. The victim was shot multiple times in Charlotte Mecklenburg, North Carolina, came to the City of Brookhaven. The individual you see running fled out the back of the store while the patrol officer who located the vehicle in the parking lot was apprehending a second individual in the parking lot. The drone was able to track through a community, was able to coordinate a perimeter around where this individual was, and he was taken into custody peacefully with minimal intrusion upon the community. And we didn't have to stop anybody in the neighborhood because they fit the description. As a result of this case and this apprehension, we were able to recover the firearm that was used in the shooting in Charlotte, as well as the $10,000 cash that was taken in the armed robbery. Some of the keys to success for our program, and you'll see it right here on the screen, is our community. Just like Chief Kennedy told you all when they launched their program, before they ever purchased the drone, they got buy in from the community. The community support is so important when you're launching a program like this. The picture that you see is of our Hispanic or Spanish speaking police academy. So every year, we host Citizens Police Academy in English and Spanish. And that's important because the community groups and the interest groups that are going to say that we're targeting persons of color, it's important that we go to those communities and show them very, very transparently what it is that we're doing, that this is not surveillance, that this is not targeted policing, and we're not targeting certain communities. And so, with the assistance of our city attorney, before we ever bought a drone, we engaged our local district attorney to make sure the district attorney was on board with the program. There's no 16 good to get drone footage of anything if the district attorney believes that that drone footage is a violation of someone's constitutional right to privacy. We also engaged the ACLU of Georgia. The ACLU of Georgia, when we engaged them, we gave them our policy. And from our policy, we engaged in a conversation and they gave us a lot of good feedback that was actually incorporated in our policy. And from there, we've taken that policy and we've actually posted it on a forward-facing website, just like Chula Vista has done. And we also publish every drone flight. We attend every community event in every neighborhood meeting we're invited to, and we don't hide from anyone. This is nothing secret when it comes to our drone program. And as I wrap up some of the policy highlights for our drone as we deal with the privacy issue, when we launched our program, we said, if the video is not of a criminal --- with criminal evidence, we're discarding the footage after 30 days. The public records law in Georgia has recently changed, and we've moved that to 180 days. But it's put into a cloud based server, and at 180 days, if it's not considered evidence in a case, it automatically goes away. We also restrict the use of vision enhancement in those cameras to areas where there's no 18 privacy interest, unless there's a warrant or exigent circumstance.

And we require all of our pilots to have a pilot's license. Our policy also says we're not using our drones to conduct random surveillance to target people based on individual characteristics like race, gender, sexual orientation. We're not using drones to harass or target any other group, and we're not using them to conduct personal business of any type. At a time when police staffing is an issue nationally, it's important that public safety agencies and governing bodies like yourselves focus on leveraging technology to close the gap. By dispatching the drone as the first responder, our police department can remotely assess the scene and determine what type of police response is necessary. This approach avoids unnecessary confrontations and allows pilots to cancel ground units when no evidence of a crime is found. And with that, I will open it up for questions. CHAIR: Thank you so very much for your testimony. One brief question. When you mentioned license plate readers, have you used that drone to - -- I understand there's a problem with ghost cars, just like with ghost guns, that they remove all identity off of the car. And when you run into a plate like that, does that give you probable cause to stop that car? And I got my own expert here on driving equity, but I want to hear how your municipality treats that.

In the State of Georgia, all vehicles are required to display valid registration, whether that be a state issue license plate or a temporary registration. It is also illegal in the State of Georgia to conceal a license plate through, like, a tenant tag cover or any type of tag frame. And so, in the State of Georgia, if someone does any of the things that I've just described, that would be against the law, and that would give us probable cause to stop them. CHAIR: Thank you. Any questions? Member Gauthier.

So, thank you so much, Lieutenant, for your presentation and for sharing your work with us. I have a question for you and the same question for the chief from Chula Vista if she's still on. Do you think that the expanded capacity that you gained from the use of drones has resulted in increased arrest, maybe for things that you wouldn't prioritize normally? I was particularly struck by the gentleman that was arrested for being intoxicated in public. Is that something that your department would have prioritized if you did not have this program? And then I would pose the same question to Chula Vista if they're still on.

So thank you for that question, ma'am. So the gentleman that was in the video that was drunk, he was not arrested for public intoxication. He was actually arrested because he had an outstanding warrant. And so, no, the drone ---.

Okay, I'm sorry, I wasn't clear.

That's on me, I didn't explain it.

Okay.

Yeah, I did not explain it, and that's a great question. And so what I will say is the drone does not change any tactic or any decision to arrest. It just provides additional evidence where evidence may be needed.

Thank you for clearing that up. That was frightening to me. So thank you. CHAIR: Are there any other questions from members of this committee for this witness?

I don't know if Chula Vista wanted to answer the same question. CHAIR: Oh, the previous ---.

Can you hear me? CHAIR: Yeah, we hear you. Thank you for staying with us.

Okay, thank you. Not a problem. I think that Lieutenant Anaya answered that perfectly. I mean, the drones aren't out there to make arrests. The drones are out there to provide information to the officers that are there. And commonly, there are many quality of life issues that don't require arrests. Sometimes it's just getting the resources for the individual that's out there. But the drone just provides those officers with that real time information and more information to make better decisions.

Thank you. CHAIR: Thank you so much for your testimony. Seeing no other questions, if you'd like to stay on and hear from other experts, please feel free to do so. And with that, Mr. Glass, who's our next witness to testify?

Mr. Chairman, our next witness is Dr. Justin Thomas, director of Controls of Exyn Technologies. CHAIR: Thank you. Welcome. Thank you for your patience. Please come up to the witness table, state your name for the record, and begin your testimony.

My name is Justin Thomas. All right, good afternoon. I'm the Director of Autonomy and Mapping at Exyn Technologies. Exyn is a Philadelphia based spinout of the University of Pennsylvania, and we develop artificial intelligence for robots that can collect data autonomously in any environment, and particularly those that are hazardous to humans. My background is focused on small unmanned aerial systems, and I completed a master's of engineering in robotics, as well as a PhD in Mechanical Engineering at the University of Pennsylvania. My research concentrated on developing autonomy for unmanned aerial systems. At Exyn I continue that effort, and I am primarily responsible for ensuring that our robots operate autonomously and safely, and can do so to navigate complex 3D environments. My goal today is to provide a brief overview of unmanned aerial systems, highlight some of the capabilities, point out some considerations, and answer any technical questions you may have about the technology. Unmanned aerial systems, which are often called drones, are flying robots that do not have a human pilot on board. Instead, they are typically controlled by a remote operator or a pilot. As a result, they can be significantly lighter, smaller, quieter, cheaper than conventional aircraft. We can think of them as similar to a helicopter. They can take off and land vertically, or they can hover at a specified location for upwards of 30 minutes. Drones can also move quickly. Within a minute, it is possible to have a system take off and start to travel across the city faster than a car. And since they are airborne, they are not restricted to the street grid, traffic lights, or traffic jams. Therefore, drones can likely reach a location of interest faster than a human can. The most basic drones require a reliable GPS signal and are unable to detect their surroundings. They may rely on a remote pilot or operator to specify a collision free flight path or to manually navigate the vehicle around obstacles. Depending upon the desired operating altitude and the environment complexity, this can be challenging. More advanced commercial systems, like the ones Exyn develops, have built in obstacle avoidance and detection, and that enables these robots to autonomously navigate around buildings, cranes, trees, power lines, and even at night. This newer technology can increase safety and reliability. It can also reduce the cognitive burden and the training required to operate such systems. In addition, drones like these can function without GPS, creating opportunities to operate at lower altitudes in urban environments, it could be among buildings instead of above them, and even indoors or underground. Presently, drones are most commonly used for situational awareness. Off the shelf robots can be equipped with sensors such as high resolution 25 cameras, night vision, thermal cameras, microphones, and laser scanners. Camera type sensors can be controlled independently of the aircraft to provide real time video streams of a specified location or to visually track a moving target. They may also be used to capture high resolution images or to record videos that can be accessed later. These systems also have the ability to do more than simply collect photos and videos. They may be equipped with spotlights or speakers to make their presence known, illuminate an area, or to communicate with persons nearby. More advanced systems can further process the data captured to generate 3D models, for example, of a crime scene or a car accident. I see two key considerations regarding the adoption of this technology for law enforcement. First, these systems could provide video surveillance from vantage points not previously possible, which may prompt public concerns about privacy. Infrared cameras cannot see through windows; however, regular cameras and night vision technology can. Secondly, the FAA regulates the airspace above our city.

Therefore, it is necessary to adhere to the appropriate regulations which dictate when and where the drones can fly, as well as how to operate them safely. In conclusion, drones have the ability to get eyes on the scene before law enforcement. They can provide an unparalleled level of situational awareness with low requirements for training and specialized skillsets. Their capabilities extend beyond aerial observation, and then they can be used for communication deterrence or to construct 3D models of a scene of interest. Finally, I would like to thank you for your attention and remind you that I'm available to answer any further questions about the technology or its capabilities. CHAIR: How long have you been doing this?

2011, I started in grad school, focusing my research on drone and the autonomous technology to enable them. CHAIR: And what is the range of type of equipment, from low end to high end, that you've dealt with and for what reasons?

Sure, I've worked with systems on the hobby side as cheap as a couple hundred dollars and maybe 250 grams to systems that cost upwards of six figures. CHAIR: Questions?

Just one. CHAIR: President Clarke?

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Yeah. Good afternoon. Thank you for being here. I just had one question. Earlier this year, there was a lot of discussions about drones, and it was connected to political campaigns. You know how we do, right? But one of the presentations that I saw, the person that was flying a drone was saying you had to have line of sight in order to operate the drone. Is that accurate? Do you have to have a direct ---?

In general, yes. This is a regulation that's established by the FAA. From a technological standpoint, that's not necessary. So it is more of a regulatory restriction that would have to be adhered to. And there are potentially opportunities to collaborate with the FAA on figuring out ways to get past that in the future.

Okay. So it's not about you being able to see the drone in order to have a direct feed, but it's the regulatory aspect of the FAA. They want you to be able to see the drone because of a concern about it going to places maybe it shouldn't be going or whatever.

That is exactly correct. It's also a matter of making sure that there are no collisions with other aircraft that are operating in the area, as well as making sure that the operator can know what the vehicle is doing at all times.

Okay, all right, I'm glad you told me that because I was wondering, when they told me that, how the people in Nevada can fly a drone over Afghanistan and say, well, that's clearly not line of sight.

Correct.

Okay. All right, thank you. CHAIR: Thank you, Mr. President. Quick question. Natural disasters, train wrecks, hazardous spills, have you had occasion to utilize this technology in cases like that?

I personally have not, though my company has been involved in some responses. We have a lot of systems that operate in underground mines, and there was a mine that collapsed a couple of years ago and we were able to send our robot in autonomously to build a three dimensional map of the area of the mine that was collapsed. And that really helped in the recovery efforts of the miners that were in that mine. CHAIR: What other type of data can drones send back to be analyzed?

Really, it's anything that you might want, any kind of sensor. We specialize in Lidar, and what that is is that is a technology that allows the robot to measure distances to any obstacle around it. And from that we can build really accurate 3D maps. So you could envision a complete replica, a digital replica of any environment that you would like, but it's not limited to that. It could be anything such as cameras or gas sensors to measure any kind of gas levels in an area and the opportunities are endless. CHAIR: Member Lozada?

With so much development that is happening in the city, is the drone capable of kind of navigating around certain obstacles that maybe were not originally there with the GPS that it has installed in it?

That's an excellent question. It ultimately comes down to the technology that is implemented on a specific drone. Some drones are capable of that and some drones are not. And what we're seeing more recently is these vehicles are able to start to detect things in the environment, something as thin as a power line, for example, and is able to navigate around that and avoid a collision.

Thank you. The two police departments that we've heard from so far have been using drones, I think, only in response to service calls as a means of quickening their response times and freeing up some of their officer capacity. Is that how every locality is using them, as sort of first response, or are there other localities that are using them more broadly than that? And are there different considerations if you use them more broadly than as a first response?

I cannot answer that question from a general standpoint, but as far as the technology itself is concerned, there would be a need for more infrastructure if you wanted continuous operation. So you would need more charging pads, for example, or more locations to swap batteries in order to enable continuous operation. CHAIR: Thank you so very much.

Thank you very much. CHAIR: Insightful. Mr. Glass, can we bring the next two up together I would imagine?

Yes, Mr. Chairman. Our next witness is Kevin Bethel, the chief of school safety for the Philadelphia School District. And just so everyone is aware, right after Chief Bethel is done speaking, we will have a live drone demonstration. So we're asking all witnesses to leave the floor, and then we'll have the members step back as well, once we're done with testimony. CHAIR: Welcome back.

Yeah. I appreciate being here. And I first want to thank the body for having us in this conversation and your leadership and willing to have these tough conversations around technology that oftentimes gets people unnerved. And specifically want to thank you, President Clarke, for your support in kind of bringing this forward. I know you've heard the conversation from the police chiefs, and it was ironic. There was only some maybe four years ago when I was looking into what the work that the Vista Police Department was doing. It's my first time to actually see it in live action. And I'm amazed at what they've been able to do with this technology and move that forward. When I sit here and listen to the why - -- so when you look about that technology, we're far from being there. As a school district, that is not our goal. And so they're at a high level. What I present to you today is a school district that is challenged with some significant issues. So my why for thinking about and using the drone technology as you all know, how many times the times I've responded to my schools to address the violence outside of our schools. I never thought I would be sitting here having a conversation around my homicide out of Roxborough High School, Lincoln High School, Bartram High School, Duckrey High School, and the list goes on. And so part of my charge as the chief of school safety in the School District of Philadelphia, and my charge from Dr. Watlington is do everything possible to keep my children safe. I'm going to repeat that, my children safe. That's how we view it. That's how my team view it. And that is our work that we're doing. And so part of that is really looking at where does the technology take us to enable us to enhance the work we're doing. We've been very appreciative of the support from the council as it relates to the cameras around our corridors. And we've also embarked as part of our Philly accelerate and the strategy out of the school district and fully supported by Dr. Watlington, to change out 150 of our schools that have analog cameras, some dating back 30 years. Increasing and adding a video management system that will align us with the genetic system that the school district --- the city has, which I know, President Clarke, as you're about to leave this place, was a vision of yours when I was on the police department. How do we integrate these cameras across the entire city so we have a true blueprint of the work we're doing. And so part of our work and my charge as Officer of School Safety is look for that futuristic technology. Listen today is not as futuristic as it appears to be and how could we integrate that technology into the work we're doing. And so part of that was looking at drone technology. At this point, I'm spending, as you know, through the support of the school district and the work of --- and some state grants to put safe corridors around our schools where we pay individuals to be on our corridors. But that costs millions of dollars to do that in the work that we're doing. We clearly know the cost of what it means to put cameras around our schools and the sheer dollar. So just from a dollar and cents perspective, the ability to buy this equipment, to be able to put around our schools, to protect my children. So our goal is not to be in the neighborhoods trying to feather out whether there's some activity. What we see, the plan to be able to use this technology to get around our schools, to make sure that our kids are moving through the corridors safely. And that is our sole focus. Looking at our supersites, as you many know, you have supersites in your communities where it's very difficult to do a full perimeter of those supersites and see if someone's doing anything that could cause some negative activity with our children. And so being able to use that in that area, we see as a significant advantage.

There may be some other capacities to use that, but we are very, very --- I want to level set here. We're not about to put on that kind of show to show you the capacity. We're very early in the development of our policy, very early in to see how this technology and the collaborations and the community collaborations are necessary. Some of the things that the chief indicated about transparency lit up on me. And I wrote about two pages of notes when I was listening to her. And so I'll stop there because I want to now start to move into what the real work is. I do want to introduce Eric Rosa. He's an assistant director. He is an FAA pilot, so he understands his space, learning it more each and every day. But he is leading this work, doing a phenomenal job as I've given him --- passed the charge on to him to bring this forward. So he is going to do a live demonstration. Just going to do a very short up in the air flight to show you some of the just the basic capacities. But these are our devices. They can't run into a wall. We have all the protections because we want to make sure we had kids using this equipment, young students. So we want to make sure we had equipment that this thing, you got to fight with it to make this thing crash. Right? And so we wanted to make sure we had a very early on and good investment in this work. So I'll stop there. I'll pass it over to my colleague here and we'll get the second part of our presentation started. Thank you for the opportunity to speak. CHAIR: Thank you. We have any questions?

Yeah, just have one quick statement. Chief, first of all, thank you. And thank you for your years of service, both at the Philadelphia Police Department, now the school district. And I like the way you emphasize protecting your children, our children, they're all of our children. And anything that we can do to make sure that we have safe corridors and not have children afraid to go to school for fear of getting shot. And we've witnessed way too much of that over the last several years. So thank you for being forward thinking. Thank you for being able to take on, to some degree, somewhat of a controversial strategy. But we really appreciate what you've done and what you're proposing to do. And again, I really like the fact that you're involving young people in the technology and the whole process that takes it to another level. So I really appreciate you.

Yeah, thank you, sir. And Eric did a very good job. He did an excellent job of working with our curriculum team to build this into a curriculum. So our young people who are supporting in this work not only get our class instruction, but they're also going to be hired as some of our powers. We're going to be bringing them on as interns to support us in this work because we think it's some great opportunities for them in their future as this technology continues to grow. Are you ready? CHAIR: Okay. Begin to --- oh, remember Lozada.

I'm sorry. I'm excited to hear that young people are engaged and they're interested in something like this. And I'm also surprised, right, because this is the age where they don't want you watching what they're doing, where they feel like you are overstepping and you're invading their privacy. And so have you guys had conversation with that? How receptive have they been? Is this just a small group of students that you all are working with, exposing them to this technology and the possibilities of using it in their school day or throughout the school day in multiple school buildings? Or have you all kind of engaged an entire school that has kind of bought into the idea?

Yeah, we haven't engaged the entire school. And I know Eric, in his testimony, can really highlight his activity, but I think anytime you bring our children into a place, I mean, we pay for someone to come into this space to train them. Two of our young people have gotten their license, and I can probably show --- we would be correct in sharing that they are absolutely ecstatic to be able to have the opportunity. They're doing missions with an aircraft that costs $18,000. Right? And part of that, what you teach them is all of the elements of learning, right? They get math, they get science, they get all of that, but they also get trust. Right? That we trust them in this space to be a part of something that we're doing. And I think that goes a long way in building trust across the entire process. And some of our kids, unfortunately, were not able to pass, but Eric and his team are staying with them. What are the extra things we have to give them to be able to get over the hump, to be able to pass that FAA test to do that? We're still early in the process as it relates to the entire community. But I will say this to you that our kids, in their surveys across the district, each and every time they do the survey, say, as you indicated, President Clarke, the corridors going to and from school has been one of the greatest challenges for them. And so oftentimes when you talk to them, they want to be safe in this environment. I've shared this before to this body and to others. When I went to high school was the safest place for me to be. Many of you, the two gentlemen in front of me, knew we grew up in a time when gang war and all the gangs were in place. But where I can go for refuge and safety was my high school, John Bartram High School, proud to say that. And so if we can't, as adults in this space, do everything possible to make these places safe again for our kids, it's a shame that we have to go down this path, though, right? So we have to name that. But at the same token, we can't sit on the sidelines and let our children be fearful of being in a school setting and not take action. And so I refuse to sit here and say, hey, woe is me that we can't do these things. So I'm going to do everything possible from people on the ground, training my people to be effective, working with the police department, anybody wants to do to make sure that our children, when they come into our space, feel safe. And that's the goal. And I'm hoping as we present it in a positive and effective way, we're able to garner the same respect and get that back in tenfold. CHAIR: Thank you. Thank you for your service. Thank you for protecting our children.

Yes sir. CHAIR: Demonstration. Take cover.

Good afternoon, Council President and esteemed members of Council. As it was said my name is Eric Rosa, I'm the assistant director of school safety with the school district of Philadelphia. And I was asked to come here today to give testimony about our drone program. But first, Council President asked that I give a little live demonstration with one of our fleet to show you essentially what our operators see when they operate the drone. For obvious safety reasons, I'm not going to fly around the building but I'll use the camera and move it around a little bit and kind of show you what it can do before I sit down and give my testimony. So I'll set up now what is our --- this is our Matrice 30T. It's made by DJI and --- . So once this links to the remote you'll be able to see what our operators see on the screen. Essentially this is a unit that is operated by our students. So once the controller links to the TV, you'll be able to see, it'll mirror the screen of the remote control. So you'll be able to see what the student operators see when they're operating the drone on a mission in their school. And I also have a video that I'll show during my testimony to show what an actual after school dismissal mission looks like outside of John Bartram High School. So we'll just wait for it to link up and here we are and we'll go ahead and get started. So as you can see, it reminds the children to do a --- or the operators, I'm sorry, to do a pre-flight check, tells them what their battery levels are. It makes sure that all of the sensing signals, the obstacle avoidance systems are on. So right now it's set to brake when it senses obstacles. This is what was mentioned earlier. Like Chief said, you've really got to try hard to crash this thing into a building or a tree. It has sensors and cameras all around it to detect obstacles. So one of our assets is not going to be destroyed very easily. Once the operator completes the pre-flight check, they're into the main screen and this is what they see when they get ready to launch. As you can see, it's mirroring what's on the remote. So you see the cameras have zoom capabilities right from the remote control. They can move the cameras around, pan, tilt, and zoom. And these also have thermal cameras built into them so they can put it in IR mode. And it senses heat, the heat signatures that come off of an individual. So if you have someone who's hiding in a tree or something of that nature, this has the technology to do that. Not that's necessarily what we use it for, but the technology is built into it. CHAIR: Well, that's a first for this chamber.

It is absolutely a first. CHAIR: Well, it sure did provide air conditioning for the chambers as well.

Normally, that thing would be way up, so you're getting a little bit of that activity. CHAIR: It doesn't sneak up on anybody either. You can hear its presence.

No, but he's got it in his chambers. Once that's up in flight, unless he brought it down to that level, you wouldn't even know it's up there. And as he shared, Eric, when you come know, this thing will be, as you heard the chief said, you can be a good distance away video and seeing what's going on before the drone is actually on top of location. CHAIR: And what was the flight time capability of that?

That machine has the capability to fly approximately 45 minutes on one battery charge. It has two batteries on it that are what's called hot swappable. So you can bring it down and take one battery out, put a fresh one in without having to shut it down. So the time to get it down and put it back up is minimal. CHAIR: Questions? President Clarke?

Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair. And an awesome presentation. Thank you so much. The young people, Chief, when they're in the classroom and they're in the position to do that, is it conceivable that they will be on the path, or they can actually leave high school with a pilot's license? Or is there an age limit in terms of threshold where they can actually get a pilot's license?

So the FAA has an age requirement that you be at least years old to receive your Part 107 5 certification. 6

7 Okay. 8

9 So when I work with the administration 10 of the school, we look at children who are 15, about 11 to turn 16 and up so that we can have them go through 12 the course, have them be certified when they're of 13 age, and then we can use them for the missions to 14 serve the school and to serve the school community. 15 As well as, as the chief pointed out earlier, we 16 intend on hiring them as interns to have them come out and support the safety and security of our supersites as well.

So the relationships are important with private sector entities like I know Dr. Watlington supported Ryan Bohr and others. We have individuals coming out of the Strawberry Mansion High School that are prepared to go into their apprenticeship program directly. So they're basically taking a pre apprenticeship program while they're in school. Are we looking at a similar approach as it relates to opportunities once they graduate with the private sector company? So we can just move those children right into a path of ---.

We actually are. We've partnered with a consortium who is the group that is leading the teaching of the students in the Part 107 preparation course. That consortium has relationships with several construction companies, with Google, with Amazon, and they've had prior young men and women who've gone through their program have been hired by these companies either as per diem workers or they have one sort of their crown jewel. Young man was hired by Google and he now makes a salary of over $100,000 a year flying drones for Google down in Dallas, Texas.

Awesome.

But I think your vision is the absolute right space of blame. I remember having a conversation with Eric. I said we could loan our drones out on the weekends and have them doing, you see, real estate. Now they're doing aerial overshots, I mean, construction, as they indicated, even internally for an organization, as indicated. We're really early in the process. But I think you're definitely a place that we can see the future of this equipment, particularly as we interlace our young people. Now, I'll be very honest, in some cases we won't be able to do that because just a safety issue. We also have to be careful that we don't put kids into harm's way to say, hey, you're going to be part of this safety initiative and you're flying, right? And you're the one flying the mission. So we also want to be very guarded as we bring our young people into this space that we don't put them in a difficult position. But we will have our staff will be the ones who are doing looking at the video. Our staff will be the ones who are pushing out the information. And so we will continue to look through to make sure we have those safeguards in place.

Awesome.

We took sort of a three-step approach to this program. Step one is obviously supporting the safety of the school with the dismissal support from the students. But we also see it as a unique opportunity for our staff and for the Philadelphia Police Department to mentor these youth. They're going through this course with them every day. You're sitting in the classroom with them, you're flying the missions with them, and you begin to build these very impactful relationships. So we made it very clear when we spoke to the administrators of the building that we weren't looking for your valedictorians necessarily. We wanted those students who could have gone either way. They're right there. They're getting the good grades. They're smart kids, but they're easily influenced and they could sway either way. And we're using this as an opportunity to pull them to the right side and to mentor them and to show them that there are ways that you can come and make real money using technology that to them is fun. And it's almost like a video game. And aside from that, we have them looking at their future, and we have them looking at ways that they could be gainfully employed. Once these students receive this certification, they are immediately employable. I mean, this is a certification that can let them go out and freelance for real estate companies, they can freelance for construction companies. They were hired by the consortium that taught them over the summer, they were making $35 an hour as camp counselors under drone cadets, teaching young people to have fun with drones and how to build and how to work with drones. So they've already benefited from receiving this certification. And I think once our goal and our hope is once they go back to school and say, hey, I made some real money this summer doing this, and it was fun and it was cool, it's really going to spike interest in this program.

Awesome. Awesome. I know the City of Philadelphia we use drones currently one for --- I don't know, Mr. Healy, wants to talk about it. But it's not just about public safety. I guess to some degree it is. I know, like license inspection, my understanding is that we actually use drones to look at the top of buildings to determine whether or not it's a dangerous condition. You can't see a collapse from down on the ground level, so this is great.

Conversely to on the opposite side of the chief, who was speaking earlier, they use theirs as sort of first responders in critical incidents. We tend to use ours a little more proactively. And I can show you a video that I have in this PowerPoint that shows you how we use it during the dismissal missions. And it's really, as the chief said, it's another set of eyes out there looking up and down the corridors, just making sure everything looks okay. If they see anything that looks out of the ordinary, anything that looks unusual, any unusual activity, they're told to flag one of the adults down. We come over, we take a look at the remote, and then we decide if we need to send assets over there or if it's a response needed from Philadelphia Police Department. So we tend to use it a little more proactively rather than reactively by just keeping an eye on the streets and making sure that everything looks okay for the students to safely go home.

I know we have about eight slides. I didn't know if you wanted to continue forward for the purpose of time or just jump over to the slide where he showed --- I'll be guided by you. CHAIR: So I just want to make sure Member Lozada gets a question in.

No very quickly. I mean, I'm really happy to hear that these students are learning an alternative option. Right? I've said many times that I mentored some students before coming here, and many of them were interested in college, but all of them would find this very interesting. You mentioned some of the employers that you guys have partnerships with, and I was afraid that you didn't mention the Philadelphia Police Department. Right? And I'm sure that we'll hear later on, if not, I'll ask the question, but do children have to be police officers to be able to get into a division like this, to be able to do something that they've been certified through the school district? Right? Are we creating an immediate pipeline to connecting them to the police department? Maybe Parks and Recreation could use a division like this to keep our park safe. $35 is a lot of money for some students, right? Some of their parents don't even make $15, $12 an hour. Right? And so $35 is a lot of money. An hour is a lot of money for a student to make. And so if we can create a pipeline of employees to all of the departments in the City of Philadelphia; License and Inspection, Parks and Recreation, Philadelphia PD, Sheriff's office, all of those things are things that are really beneficial to young people who either don't think they are ready to go to college, don't want to go to college or this is just super interesting to them and want to look at a career in drones.

So speaking of college, interesting that you brought that up. One of our partnerships that we formed was with Warren County Community College, and they've agreed to give every student who passes through this program and receives their certification three course credits towards some of their UAS courses, their undergrad degrees at Warren County Community College, for a very small fee, that Chief Bethel has agreed that we would pick up. I think it's like, $120 to have these credits transferred over to them. So it kind of gives them a jump start if they chose to continue their education towards a degree in this field. And additionally, the 12th District has been a great partner with us through this process. The captain and the lieutenant there. The officers are very eager. And one of the officers who went through the program and actually received his certification, Officer Montague, the relationship that he's built with these students, I think, has really shown them another side of policing. They think Officer Montague is so cool. He comes up in his car, and hey, what's up, guys? And the way he meets them, the way he interacts with them, he went from being and he was an officer who was already there every day at dismissal in uniform. And to see him in this other light and to have him helping them with this, and I have some pictures of him helping the kids here as well. He's really grown a really cool bond that you see with the kids that I think really just puts police in a different light for them. And I think many of them, let's be honest, when we first brought this up and when we first talked to the kids, the first thing that they said was, I'm not an Op, I'm not a fed. That's the first thing they said. Much to your point, they didn't want to be a part of it. But once they kind of, whoa, I get to fly that, I get to play with that, I get to do this. All right, I'll try it. And they kind of put their toe in and then they got in a little further and now they're all in and they're very aware of the mission of what it is that they are doing at dismissal. And they do it now with pride. And they know that they're supporting the safety of their peers. Because most of these children, they want to be safe. They want to come to school and do what it is that they're supposed to do and they don't want to have to worry about getting jumped or being assaulted or being victimized on the way to and from school. So they take a great sense of pride in knowing that they're contributing to not only themselves, but to their peers safety after school. So it has really grown on them and we're using that. We're telling them, tell your friends, a lot of your friends who are kind of iffy, tell them what you experience, that's the most powerful testimony is the testimony of your peers.

Yeah, I can appreciate that, especially at a time like now where we're experiencing some tension between the police department and the community, especially young people. And so finding opportunities where we can find common ground, where there are things that kind of bring them together and see each other in a different light is extremely important.

I think that's why --- and I know we're going to switch over. These conversations are so important because folks can for their first time hear a totally different conversation around what drones actually are. They hear it, but they don't really get to see what's happening on the ground. And now you hear a whole conversation, a whole narrative about how it's impacting young people and how it's doing these other things. And so I appreciate the body really bringing this to the forefront because I think it gives a more well-rounded overview of what's going on. CHAIR: So we're going to skip those slides.

That's fine. CHAIR: But I want to put on the record that our president went from cameras to drones to acoustical recognition. He just went all George --- I mean, Jetsons on us. And so we appreciate that. But I want to say to you, this program within the school district checks a lot of boxes, community policing, career from school to paycheck pipelines, public safety corridors, it is a practical win/win situation and we are thankful that you are visionary enough to do that.

We appreciate it. And if I could take 1 minute, I do want to say thank you. I know President Clarke, you'll be leaving the body soon. I don't think I'll be able to come up in this session before then. But I just want to tell you how I've appreciated all of the work and my time in the Philadelphia Police Department and then even carrying over to the school district was never a time that you didn't pick up the phone and say, Kev, what do you need? And it was at a time I couldn't call you. And I just want to publicly say thank you for your years of service and all the work you've done to help the community, the City of Philadelphia, and particularly on a personal note, thank you for all the support you've given me.

Thank you. Thank you so much. Somebody told me that they're going to create a voluntary alumni division of public servants. I got something in the mail.

I think I might see you doing one of these drone things pretty soon. But we'll see how it goes.

Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you so much. CHAIR: Thank you for your testimony, guys.

Thank you all. Appreciate it. CHAIR: And you, I remember when you came, you had no technological skills at that time. You were in your --- but that wasn't in your job description. You added that. All right. Mr. Glass.

Mr. Chairman, our final witnesses for this panel are Nick Franzosa, vice president of Strategy, and Kieran Carroll, Chief of Strategy at Zero Eyes. CHAIR: Welcome. Thank you for your patience. I thought we were doing him.

Good afternoon, everyone. CHAIR: Please state your name for the record and begin your testimony.

Yes, sir. It's Kieran Carroll. I'm the Chief Strategy Officer at ZeroEyes. My associate over here is Nick Franzosa. He's going to be working the PowerPoint here. First of all, I just want to say to the committee, thank you for your leadership. After sitting here for the last hour or so, it's extremely heartening to see the direction the city wants to go. I will say that I am not going to be flying a drone for this presentation. It's a little bit hard to follow something like that. That was incredible. Really great to see that. Just want to familiarize everyone a little bit about ZeroEyes and Nick's pulling up a slide here, but I'll kind of talk through it. ZeroEyes is a software manufacturer based right outside the City in Conshohocken. We started the company in 2018. The entire core team is former military. Most of us came out of the special operations community, and we started the company right after the Parkland shooting happened. This presentation is going to offer a little bit different of a perspective on ways to leverage effective drone as a first responder using the city's existing cameras. We've heard testimony today that the city is federated on the Genetec system. That means there are thousands of cameras that are able to be viewed and monitored. ZeroEyes software is currently deployed across the city into certain organizations. I'll touch on that here in a second. But to give everyone just an idea, after the Parkland shooting in 2018 happened, the core ZeroEyes team came together. We quit our existing jobs, and what we decided to do is we decided to build a software that could integrate to existing security cameras that were already in place, and our software would detect a visible firearm. As it turns out, the vast majority of gun violence in a municipal setting, as well as active shooters, start under a field of view of an existing security camera, and the perpetrator has a visible firearm. Unfortunately, just in the last year alone, we've seen this multiple times. We saw this in Uvalde, we saw this in Nashville, we saw this in Michigan State recently. This is very, very common gun violence psychology. And as it turns out, there's almost 100 million existing commercial security cameras in the United States today. So that's not counting your residential cameras like Ring or Nest. That is strictly commercial cameras. Here in the City of Philadelphia, our estimate is that we are probably somewhere in the nature of 150,000 to 200,000 existing commercial security cameras. We have the ability to turn those cameras into a massive force multiplier that is going to detect a visible firearm and then send a series of alerts to people that need to know. So from an objective standpoint --- actually, Nick, just back up one slide. Thanks. We have an opportunity here to leverage drone response automatically based on a firearm detection. So the use case that we're specifically interested in is the one that is predominantly vexing to most of us, and that is kids and other people running around the city with visible firearms. We see it in the news, unfortunately, almost every single day. The geography challenges from a first response that Philadelphia police have are immense. This is a huge city. We lack resourcing and officers, but the ability for a drone to go and get overhead within 30 seconds to 120 seconds is incredible. We've heard really good testimony from folks that are doing this currently, today. The ZeroEyes solution right now is live on Air Force bases. That's where we started with the Department of Defense. We have multiple partners to include Exyn in the room today with us. We're going to sort of walk through sort of the concept of what that's going to look like. Nick, next slide. I'm going to talk for a second about the ZeroEyes commercial technology. So I mentioned our software is built and integrates into existing security cameras. We are camera agnostic. We're video management system agnostic.

We prefer to work with digital IP cameras. So it's great news hearing that the Philly schools are moving off analog cameras into digital cameras. We're very familiar with the Genetec system. Our software is designed to detect visible firearms within milliseconds. And then on top of that, we have a 24/7/365 operations center right outside the City in Conshohocken. Our operations center is staffed by analysts who are predominantly former military veterans and former law enforcement veterans. e. if someone actually has a visible gun or not. And then through pre-programmed software channels, they're able to dispatch that out and that alert is able to get sent to basically any first responder or any endpoint. And typically that response is going to look very similar to what you see there. It's going to be a keyframe image detection with a timestamp and a geolocation. End users will receive the image of what that person looks like and the gun that they're carrying, as well as a geolocation. So latitude and longitude position that's correlated down to the camera. So that's what happens on the ZeroEyes side. And if you add the drone response in, this is currently what we're doing for the Air Force. That verified ZeroEyes alarm will pop up in a drone operations center and will autonomously spin up a drone to go respond. This sounds complex, but realistically, this is relatively straightforward technology. We're able to do this through a series of API endpoints. Here in Philadelphia a good example might be there's someone with a weapons detection coming out of maybe a transit point or outside of a school. That drone could be up in overhead, like I've mentioned before, within 30 to 120 seconds. Whereas your average police response might be something in the nature of four to five minutes, if we're that lucky. On top of that, we have the capability to actually inference from the drone, so the drone could also detect a visible firearm. It's going to depend on what kind of drone we're using. We strive to be drone agnostic, so depending on the camera and the payload of the drone, but certainly some of your bigger drones are easily able to inference from the drone. Nick, do you want to move on? I'm going to show you just a quick image. I usually show videos, but for the sake of time, we're just going to go through an image. This is the ZeroEyes software that's operating on drones. This is with a company called Asylon Robotics. Asylon is a Norristown, Pennsylvania based company. I believe they actually started here in Philadelphia similar to what we did. Asylon builds a drone in a box so the drone can autonomously take off and land. It can do a battery swap. The uptime is basically, I think, 56 minutes out of every hour that drone can be up. Of course, in this case, it would be responding to a critical incident. In this case, it's going to be someone with a firearm. This technology has been proven out for the Department of Defense. Nick, next slide please. I'm going to talk through, I think, what an interesting use case could potentially be. This is Michigan State. So if everyone remembers, a few months back there was an active shooter event at Michigan State University. Unfortunately, four students were killed. ZeroEyes does a ton of work within Michigan K through twelve and higher ed. The police scanner is open to the public. So about 111 minutes after the first shots fired call went out, I hopped on the police scanner and I listened over the next three hours before the event got resolved. There on the left, that Google Earth image you see there. These are the shots fired 911 phone calls that happened in the first 30 minutes. Those blue pin drops that you see, those are places where I geolocated the call coming from. They're not every 911 phone call. They got over 3,000 911 phone calls in the space of about three hours. That red circle, that is the two buildings that the shooter was between.

He was only ever on campus for a total of about 11 minutes. And then that top right image right there, that's what Michigan State University police released on Twitter about two hours into the event. This is the image of the gunman who is staging, again, very typical active shooter behavior. He's staging in a stairwell. He's pulling a pistol out of his pocket, he's loading a magazine. There's a camera that was on active recording the entire time. Then there at the bottom right, that's the ZeroEyes software. We have access to the original video file. We detect the gun as it comes out of his pocket. And this is the image that could have been broadcast out in three to five seconds across multiple agencies to include an effective drone response if they had a capability to do that. That probably could have detected this guy as he left the building. It took Michigan State University police and the rest of the interstate agency over three hours to find him. Eventually, that image at the top right there, that's what got this guy caught. Someone saw him walking down the street. At this point he was several miles north of campus. Someone called it in. Police went to confront him and he ended up taking his own life. So this is the ability that we have with a firearm detection to get it out across the agency as quickly as possible and also for an effective drone response. I'm going to show you an image. This is from Philly. I mentioned we're deployed into several organizations here in the city to include SEPTA. Realistically, we see folks with guns all the time in the City of Philadelphia. This is a good example. We got this detection, we verified it in a couple seconds. This got relayed back to SEPTA's operations center. The problem is they didn't have an officer close enough to respond. So by the time officer went to go find this individual, who was clearly brandishing a firearm, that individual was gone. I think what we're proposing, and we have the technological ability to do it now, is, and I heard this earlier in the testimony if we strategically stage drones around the city, a drone could be up overhead and have this individual within line of sight, custody of the drone until an officer is able to go apprehend or at least intervene and see what's going on. And then the last set of recommendations that we have and happy to sort of talk through this, we see Philadelphia as a great example to engage stakeholders on this. There are currently not very many cities actively using their existing security cameras to do this type of detection and enable a drone response. We believe that a pilot project could and should be launched using a few hundred cameras across the city to prove out the concept. We are agnostic to drones at ZeroEyes, but we do a lot of work in the space with Asylon Robotics, who, like I mentioned before, they're up in Norristown. And then we'd be very happy to partner with the city to run drill scenarios to make sure everyone's very comfortable in doing it. And then a few final thoughts. There's probably a pretty good chance that most folks in the room never heard of ZeroEyes, but I like to think of us --- we are a true Philly success story. We started this company in Philadelphia back in 2018. There were seven of us as cofounders or early hires that quit our jobs and went all in on this idea that the ability to detect visible firearms from existing security cameras is a massive force multiplier for law enforcement and first responders. In the ensuing years, even throughout COVID, we've grown the company substantially. Right now, we're about 170 employees. About 80 percent of the company is a military veteran. I mentioned that we started in Philadelphia. We were actually over at Pennovation. That's where we sort of incubated the idea for a while. We're currently in Conshohocken, as you can imagine.

We had to move out of the city eventually because flying drones and robotics and walking around with firearms can present certain problems here in Philadelphia. And Conshohocken just has the space, quite frankly, that we need. But that being said, we've given jobs to hundreds of people in this area that are military veterans and law enforcement veterans. They see this as the next mission and a valuable mission to support. On top of that, we've raised over $50 million of institutional capital to keep the business going and build. A lot of that is from local investors as well. So I do see this as a success story here in Philly. The other thing that I'm going to add to is that it takes an ecosystem to get this done. Philly has an incredible, innovative ecosystem. And more and more in particular on the engineering side when it comes to drones and robotics, the Exyn folks presented earlier, they're right downtown. Asylon's up in Norristown. Ghost Robotics is downtown. We have an incredibly good ecosystem of autonomy and drone companies that are coming out of the University of Pennsylvania system. And then you layer on computer vision and artificial intelligence companies on top of that. I don't think that we have to look that far around the country for solutions. I think there's some stuff right here in our own backyard. ZeroEyes would be happy to assist with that. The last thing I'll leave you with is that over the last year or so, we've implemented, I think, a really effective government affair strategy here in Pennsylvania, as well as some other states around the country. And then federally, we have hosted --- Nick, I mean, I've lost count of the number of Pennsylvania legislature members that have shown up to the office. We've also hosted multiple congressional parties. We are very happy to show folks how we build the software, develop the software, happy to get hands on with the drones and the robot dogs that we have, show everyone what we're working on. So this is an open invitation to the members of the committee. Please do come visit. We are happy to host you and show you what we're up to. And with that concludes the presentation. Happy to take questions. CHAIR: Wow. I'm going to start with that description. I'm going to ask you, how do you, in this technology, I know drones and the cameras. Does that include acoustical equipment?

Yeah. So ZeroEyes itself, we just build the fire detection and verification software and platform. But that being said, we integrate to numerous other layers of the ecosystem of which the acoustic stuff is very important. So I'm sure people here have heard of ShotSpotter or they've just rebranded a sound thinking. But I look at us as basically two sides of the same coin. I think the fire protection piece visually from cameras is a little bit more proactive. Obviously, with the acoustic piece, the gun has to be fired. But at the end of the day, if you're able to afford it and have a good strategy around it, putting both of those capabilities in layers makes a ton of sense to us. And then throwing a drone on top of that, I think, is sort of the Holy Grail. CHAIR: So my other question would be, as we deal with legal protests that sometimes change to something else or events that, we have the parkway filled with folk, to what degree can you distinguish within a large crowd a threat?

Yeah. So I think that the best way to describe performance, which I think is basically what you're asking, I think, right? I like to say that if you're a human and you're sitting behind an active camera feed and you can tell that something is a gun, our software should also perform to the same way. There's obviously a ton of variability when it comes to cameras, right? There's different manufacturers, different resolutions, heights, angles, lighting, background condition, people in frame, movement in frame. But I think what I just said about if a human can tell something's a gun, that's a pretty fair blanket performance statement. That being said, we are deployed into environments right now that have tens of thousands of people throughout the hallways or in and out of the building throughout the day. I will tell you one thing about human nature that I've noticed. If someone has a gun displayed in a crowd, people tend to make as much room as possible between themselves and that person, which should give us opportunities to identify the gun. CHAIR: Members, questions? You were very precise, and I would be interested to find out from Deputy Commissioner Healy how much municipal envy we should have and how we are developing this technology here in Philly. So thank you for your testimony.

Yes, sir, I appreciate that. And please feel free to reach out to us if there's any further questions. Thanks. CHAIR: Okay. Mr. Glass.

Mr. Chairman, our final witness today is Deputy Commissioner Fran Healy from the Philadelphia Police Department. CHAIR: Welcome back.

Thank you, sir. CHAIR: You know the drill. State your name and begin your testimony.

One second, sir. Good afternoon, everyone. My name is Fran Healy. I got to get used to saying this, but Deputy Commissioner of the Offices of Professional Responsibility and Legal Affairs. So it's under the umbrella of the legal affairs that I'm here, as I've always been in the past. To summarize, I provided the written statements, but being late in the day, I'll try to summarize. We in the police department, obviously, following Kevin Bethel is never good. Okay. But it is what it is. But we implemented a program back in 2018. We drafted a very strict policy for the privacy issues in Philadelphia with the civil rights attorneys. We've worked with them in the past, so we wanted to make sure we had a very restrictive policy. But we honestly have nothing like what you've seen here today. As the captain --- or as the chief from California mentioned, she uses them for tactical purposes and other purposes. Our purposes here in Philadelphia are primarily tactical. We have four tactical drones. As now, they're in the SWAT unit. They use them for SWAT, for barricades and that type of information. We also have a new one coming in for the Marine unit to do searches, larger water searches using the drone for those purposes. They've been used primarily for the barricaded situations, but also large crowds, large events on the parkway for the observation from the aerial view, for tactical advantages. That being said, I can't help, but I'm kind of jealous, quite frankly, of what I saw. And I'm very interested in seeing how we can in Philadelphia develop something. I'm looking forward to either developing some type of a working group and actually gathering more information to see what we can do with this technology. I know what we're doing is rather restricted, but looking at what we've seen, I see that the potential and the possibilities are endless. So we're looking forward to looking into those opportunities. But I'm happy to answer your questions. Like I said, I wanted to be very short and sweet. I know it's late in the day. I'm happy to say we have, like I said, the number of units that we have. We have one nighttime unit. The cost for these are approximately --- they're old or they're older. Based on this technology, most on average were about $2,000, $2,500. The night viewing one was about $6,000. I'm not sure what the cost of the new one coming in then that would be assigned to the Marine unit, but all these units are under the special operations, which are our tactical units. CHAIR: So if I could how many trained members of the force know how to use this technology at present?

A handful, based on the federal FAA regulations at the certified pilots under Regulation 107. I believe there's two or three at best, because they're only limited in use by the SWAT unit, quite frankly. CHAIR: And if you had your druthers and a big pocketbook check to go to, how would you design a system for Philadelphia?

That's a very good question, and I wouldn't be fair if I told you I knew the answer. I need to get the subject matter experts in the room and figure out how to do this. Best practices is something relatively new. So I would reach out honestly to the major city police chiefs and the IACP to see what they have policy wise, but also from the jurisdictions that already have them in play. What I was most focused on was how they overcame the hurdles, the issues with the community. The cameras, when we implemented cameras in Philadelphia were a huge problem. I remember this started with Commissioner Timoney, quite frankly, when we wanted to put cameras in Rittenhouse Park, and everybody kind of got very upset understanding that there is no expectation of privacy in the public. But nonetheless, people have this expectation that people, they're not going to be spied upon. That has since waned with all the new cameras. We have people now they're kind of dismayed when we don't have cameras in a certain area. So the whole public sentiment has changed. When we first started our drone problem, our program, that was kind of the mindset that were up against in 2018. Like these are going to be used by the police in a surveillance, kind of like, are they going to look at my windows? And I heard that a couple of times, and so we were very restrictive on that. So if we're going to use them, and if we're ever going to use them in a search capacity, it would have to be based on a warrant, just like any other search would be done. But seeing how they're being used here, it's much more than a tactical operation. This is actually intervening and helping to actually alleviate the number of police officers actually responding and are able to respond to a job, on found a job, quite frankly, is important because that leaves that officer available to respond to other jobs. So I see the utility of this and I'm kind of excited to actually look at to see how we can look at this in a bigger way. Money is a big issue, obviously, but looking at how we can offset what we spend on the opportunity costs but what we don't have to spend in other avenues also has to be considered in any type of assessment. But how I would come up with this program, quite frankly, I honestly don't know. I mean, if I said I did, I'd kind of be lying to you. But I would get the subject matter experts in the room to see how they're deployed, where they're deployed from and see what resources we have that actually can comport with that, to see how we can actually create a synergy between what we already have and how they're deploying them in the street themselves. That's one thing I would want to know. CHAIR: Members of the committee, questions?

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you, Deputy. I appreciate you having had a long, long ---

No, actually ---.

--- opportunity to interact with ---.

I will say I enjoyed it because it was very informative. I mean, it's nice to know I knew of different things, but seeing it in firsthand, it was very impressive. I can't say anything but.

Yeah. No, I appreciate you, had the ability to interact with you over many years usually here in your role as the legal part of the response to City Council and some of its more aggressive approaches to trying to do you all's job. Unfortunately, we are in our lane most of the time. But I just want to say that at the end of the day, it's about policy. And policy is usually driven by the non-uniform members of government at the top level, which is why we non-uniform members of council have always come up with all kinds of ideas, sometimes didn't make a whole lot of sense. It weren't really reality based. But it just grows out of the frustration of seeing some of the things that we've seen. I know that you all in a uniform portion of government have a better understanding of the reality base. But I can recall, as I said, I've been here for a long time and I can recall when I first got elected as a council person and then Mayor Street, we actually had a police commissioner was just before that, Mr. Timoney. He was widely thought of quite highly as one of the better police commissioners that we were able to hire at the time. And he had a very aggressive pushback on us deploying cameras in the City of Philadelphia. Not even the live --- because the dibbit wasn't even created yet. Not even a real time camera. Just simple cameras. And, I mean, it was like I couldn't quite understand why he was pushing back so hard. And he actually gave an explanation here in his chambers and talked about Rittenhouse Square and how somebody was sitting in Rittenhouse Square Park with somebody other than their wife that would be problematic, that a camera would pick them up on their feed. And I'm like, are you kidding me? Right? But that's the kind of pushback we got over the years. But thank God, as time grew on and technology advanced, people said, look, we got to stop playing. We need to utilize other aspects of it. And I get it. Drone usage is something that a lot of people are using, but it's still, to some degree, the jury is out. But it's an effective tool from our perspective. Again, we are the non-uniform members of government. But at the end of the day, as Chief Bethel said, anything that you have to use to protect our children. And I'll go a little further our children, our brother, our sister, our grandmother. Right? Because people are at risk across the City of Philadelphia. And I'm not suggesting that you're not supportive of what we're talking about today, but it's just that if there is an opportunity, and I don't care how much it costs, I mean, $18,000 for that very impressive drone, but when you talk about saving a life, there's no dollar figure that can be attached to that. Or more importantly, we're talking about preventing a crime. I don't want to get into what has happened over the last 48 hours, but the bottom line is we need to look at this. I'm glad that the officers from California acknowledged that you needed to have community buy in, and they indicated that they had a lot of community meetings. But at some point, I think we really need to move forward. I mean, there'll be a new administration coming in. We need to think about utilizing every level of technology within reason, because I'm not necessarily there on some of the infrared and seeing people through a building and all that. I'm not there. Right? This is not the military. But I think this is clearly something that needs to have some significant levels of conversation, because we have to do some things differently as it relates to our ability to keep our people safe.

I wholeheartedly agree. If there is ways that we can do our job better, more efficient, more effective, and actually without negatively impacting the community while doing so. I mean, policing is sometimes --- nobody likes to be stopped by the police. Being able to use this technology to have less contact that we don't need to have would be phenomenal. So what I say here is the commissioner sent me over here, and he's very open and receptive to new ideas and new concepts and new ways of doing things. So what I can say leaving here is that I will definitely convene a working group of sorts and try to see how we're going to interact with other cities to see how they're doing and bring back some best practices. Because even if we can't do it at the scale that's being done, we should be transitioning towards using it in a much more effective manner than we already do. And in different types of drones. The tactical is a win, but there's so much more now that's evolved since just 2018. So, yeah, I'm 100 percent on board. We'll look into, see what we can do, and I'm happy to report back. We'll see if we find anything.

Thank you. Thank you, Deputy. CHAIR: Member Lozada?

Over the course of the last few weeks, we've heard about adding tools to a toolbox, right? And you have folks who are pro and in opposition of some of these tools. But I think that tools like this that would better improve public safety, better improve quality of life while still protecting people's constitutional rights is extremely important to get behind. And I think it's a conversation that we should not only be having here in this legislative chamber or you all in the Broad Street building, right, or in the school district. I think it's a conversation that we really should start having at the community level and start gaining buy in, start hearing about how they feel. When we first started to talk about installing cameras along commercial corridors, around playgrounds, around senior centers, folks got a little alarmed. They got a little concerned, cameras on SEPTA buses. There was a lot of uneasiness around cameras. I think that as we start talking about considering drones and identifying how we pay for something like this, that to me, I think would benefit us. Right. It would be a positive tool in that toolbox. Let us not forget to start talking and bringing the people in now as we work towards getting to what we're looking to achieve in the future.

Thank you. I agree. And also, I think it's important, the technology may not --- the laws we have here may be restrictive laws in every jurisdiction is slightly different. But as we develop out a policy or protocol building in making sure, like you just mentioned, thermal, that's a search under U.S. Supreme Court case law. So making sure that we - -- even though the technology is there, how do we direct it in the right way so it's not misused. And so exactly to your point, constitutional rights and privacy rights of individuals is the highest concern, but we also can balance that with the ability to see how we can maximize our effectiveness by using the technology. I agree. So I will definitely put something together internally, and if possible, can I have a copy of everything here today so I can share it with my people? Because like I said, I don't have to dig it up. It's good stuff. CHAIR: You're done? All I want to say is, I remember the first grant that President Clarke got this city to do cameras in the Fourth District and how hesitant people were. And I get it. I read George Orwell's 1984. I get the privacy issue. But what sold me on this technology was there was an abduction of a young lady. And the dibbit was able to identify this guy who got her out of Germantown out of a train station on a block up there. Because he had a distinctive limp, they were able to identify him with another camera, find a person and find the young lady alive. I'm sold. Protecting and serving and preserving life is the priority. And as we evolve as a city, as Member Lozada talked about, we need to use every tool on the tool belt being constitutionally aware. But public safety has to be one of our priorities. So thank you for your testimony. Thank you for your service. Congratulations on your promotion.

Thank you, sir, I appreciate it. Thank you. CHAIR: If there are no other members to testify --- people to testify, this concludes the business of the committee public hearing on public safety dealing with resolution number --- what was the resolution 9 number? Oh, I got it, 230523. Thank you all for your testimony. * * * * * * * * MEETING CONCLUDED AT 4:40 P.M. * * * * * * * * CERTIFICATE I hereby certify, as the stenographic reporter, that the foregoing proceedings were taken stenographically by me, and thereafter reduced to typewriting by me or under my direction; and that this transcript is a true and accurate record to the best of my ability. Dated the day of October, 2023 11 12 13 14 Kathleen Formichelli, 15