{"id":601,"date":"2026-06-25T14:15:03","date_gmt":"2026-06-25T14:15:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/longhaulmovingpros.com\/?p=601"},"modified":"2026-06-25T14:15:03","modified_gmt":"2026-06-25T14:15:03","slug":"video-shows-police-drone-use-a-magnet-to-disarm-overdosing-suspect-cops-take-victory-lap","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/longhaulmovingpros.com\/?p=601","title":{"rendered":"Video Shows Police Drone Use a Magnet to Disarm Overdosing Suspect, Cops Take Victory Lap"},"content":{"rendered":"
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If you\u2019ve spent any amount of time in Los Angeles, you\u2019re likely intimately familiar with the sound of police helicopters buzzing through residential neighborhoods at all hours of the day and night. For years, the cops claimed these deafening strafes and spotlight beam blasts into bedroom windows from the world\u2019s largest municipal air fleet were an instrumental part of their \u201cpredictive policing\u201d strategy to stop crime before it\u2019s committed, a claim that is patently impossible to prove.<\/p>\n

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But in 2023, that narrative was finally challenged when one of the most popular elected officials in L.A. history, city controller Ken Mejia, conducted the first-ever audit into the ways the LAPD\u2019s Air Support Division (ASD) uses its 17-chopper fleet. Not only did Mejia\u2019s analysis find no tight relationship between the number of helicopter patrols over a neighborhood and the volume of crime reported there, it also found that 61 percent of these joyrides were flown for low-priority reasons. And\u2014you may want to sit down for this\u2014they were also found to be disproportionately targeting low-income communities of color in South and East Los Angeles.<\/p>\n

With this copter context, as well as the broader issue of cops habitually abusing modern surveillance tech, it\u2019s hard to read the news of the LAPD\u2019s aerial expansion into drone policing as anything but another sign of dystopian creep. After 3,500 drone flights in 2025 and a $2.1 million donation from the Los Angeles Police Foundation, the city\u2019s Board of Police Commissioners unanimously (and unilaterally) voted this February to expand the city\u2019s Drone as First Responder (DFR) program with the purchase of 24 more HD-camera and thermal-imaging equipped drone units via a 3-year contract with San Mateo, California-based manufacturer Skydio.<\/p>\n

But it\u2019s not just SoCal LEOs signing up as eager field testers for Silicon Valley\u2019s latest technofascist products. All around the state, police departments are excitedly showing off their new toys. Take the June 22 video posted to the Sacramento County Sheriff\u2019s Office showcasing their DFR entering a garage to disarm a suspect.<\/p>\n

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View this post on Instagram<\/p>\n<\/blockquote><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

As the copaganda video\u2019s four-paragraph caption reads, the suspect\u2014only referred to as a \u201cknown felon\u201d and \u201cparolee-at-large\u201d\u2014was \u201cnot responding to negotiators,\u201d so a drone (also manufactured by Skydio) was \u201cdeployed inside the residence\u201d with a \u201cpowerful magnet\u201d dangling below. Then, \u201cin an incredible display of creativity, skill, and precision by the drone pilot,\u201d the drone \u201csafely remove[d] the knife from the suspect\u2019s hand before deputies moved in.\u201d<\/p>\n

What is actually shown in the video is a bit less heart-racing, despite the Mission: Impossible<\/em> soundtrack blaring throughout it. After a shot of the goggled drone pilot, we switch to the drone cam and watch it navigate through a messy garage over to the motionless suspect-in-question, face down on what appeared to be a mattress with his right hand extended, holding a knife. With its helpfully stationary target locked, the little police drone descends until its magnet finds purchase. A few tugs later, the knife is free and being flown back to the officers milling about in the street. But the threat\u2019s not yet neutralized.<\/p>\n

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In a follow-up video posted to the department\u2019s Instagram account today, this one set to Iron Maiden\u2019s War Pigs without a hint of irony, we learn that the situation also gave Sacramento\u2019s finest the opportunity to play with their robotic K9 unit, \u201cBuster,\u201d and their armored mini-bulldozer, \u201cThe Rook,\u201d during the SWAT team\u2019s efforts to apprehend the stationary suspect. As this video\u2019s caption and subsequent interviews indicate, the suspect was not moving because he was \u201cplaying dead\u201d or \u201clying in wait\u201d like the previous video posited, but instead had likely overdosed after \u201cconsum[ing] all his drugs\u201d once the cops started chasing him.<\/p>\n

Nonetheless elated by their \u201cfirst in the nation\u201d tactical aeronautical de-bladification, Sacramento Sheriff Jim Cooper made the press rounds evangelizing the tech.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe future is drones,\u201d Cooper told NewsNation\u2019s \u201cThe Hill\u201d host Blake Burman. \u201cObviously, we use them a lot to make entry into houses, I mean, on a regular basis.\u201d<\/p>\n

As reported in SFGate<\/em>, the Skydio drones in Yucaipa, California\u2019s DFR program have \u201cresponded to 114 calls for service\u201d and \u201ccontributed to 12 arrests,\u201d according to a statement by Yucaipa PD. The statement included no further clarification as to how that contribution manifested, but it\u2019s safe to assume police drones aren\u2019t yet able to cuff humans. That tech\u2019s still in the R&D stage.<\/p>\n

With about 1,500 drone programs now operating across America, according to the LAPD, it seems Cooper\u2019s claim about this tech being part of our future, whether we like it or not, isn\u2019t far-fetched. But that doesn\u2019t mean we can\u2019t and shouldn\u2019t still fight to put limits on how and when these units are deployed. Because as nice as it would be if their application was nothing but heroic public-serving feats like that knife snatch, drones are most likely going to be primarily used to widen the state\u2019s panopticon\u2014as they did when deployed to surveil peaceful protestors at LA\u2019s recent \u201cNo Kings\u201d protest. And if the LAPD\u2019s history of helicopter misuse is any indicator, everyone should be concerned for their privacy, peace, and other rights now that pigs can fly nationwide.<\/p>\n

Read more You\u2019re Almost Out of Time to Save Up to 47% During Roborock\u2019s Prime Day Robot Vacuum and Floor Washer Sale<\/a><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The curious copaganda clip is being used to claim drones are the future of policing, but is this how they’ll really be employed?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":600,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-601","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-crime"],"yoast_head":"\nVideo Shows Police Drone Use a Magnet to Disarm Overdosing Suspect, Cops Take Victory Lap - Long Haul Moving Pros<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/longhaulmovingpros.com\/?p=601\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Video Shows Police Drone Use a Magnet to Disarm Overdosing Suspect, Cops Take Victory Lap - 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