Instead of dispatching an officer each time, several Colorado police departments may soon dispatch a drone to respond to certain 911 calls. While the proposal has promise, it also raises uncomfortable questions about privacy.

As Shelly Bradbury reported this week in The Denver Post, "A handful of local law enforcement agencies are considering using drones as first responders—that is, sending them in response to 911 calls—as police departments across Colorado continue to widely embrace the use of the remote-controlled flying machines."

Bradbury quotes Arapahoe County Sheriff Jeremiah Gates saying, "This really is the future of law enforcement at some point, whether we like it or not." She notes that while there are currently no official plans in place, "Gates envisions a world where a drone is dispatched to a call about a broken traffic light or a suspicious vehicle instead of a sheriff's deputy, allowing actual deputies to prioritize more pressing calls for help."

The Denver Police Department—whose then-chief in 2013 called the use of drones by police "controversial" and said that "constitutionally there are a lot of unanswered questions about how they can be used"—is also starting a program, buying several drones over the next year that can eventually function as first responders.

In addition to Denver and Arapahoe County, Bradbury lists numerous Colorado law enforcement agencies that also have drone programs, including the Colorado State Patrol, which has 24 drones, and the Commerce City Police Department, which has eight drones and 12 pilots for a city of around 62,000 people and plans to begin using them for 911 response within a year.

In addition to helping stem the number of calls an officer must respond to in person, some law enforcement agencies see this as a means of saving money. One Commerce City police official told The Denver Post that "what we see out of it is, it's a lot cheaper than an officer, basically." And Denver intends for its program to make up for an $8.4 million cut to the police budget this year.

On one hand, there is certainly merit to such a proposal: Unless they're of the Predator variety, drones are much less likely than officers to kill or maim innocent civilians—or their dogs. And as Gates noted, drones could take some of the busywork out of policing by taking some of the more mundane tasks off an officer's plate.

But it also raises privacy concerns to farm out too much police work to unmanned surveillance aircraft.

"Sending out a drone for any time there is a 911 call, it could be dangerous and lead to more over-policing of communities of color," Laura Moraff, a staff attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union of Colorado, told The Denver Post. "There is also just the risk that the more that we normalize having drones in the skies, the more it can really affect behavior on a massive scale, if we are just looking up and seeing drones all over the place, knowing that police are watching us."

Indeed, while this sort of dystopic panopticon would certainly make life easier for officers day to day, it would signal the further erosion of the average Coloradan's Fourth Amendment rights.

In Michigan, for example, police hired a drone pilot to take pictures of a person's property rather than go to the trouble of getting a warrant. Earlier this month, the state supreme court upheld the search, ruling that since the purpose was for civil code enforcement and not a criminal violation, it didn't matter whether the search violated the Fourth Amendment.

Thankfully, there are some positive developments on that front: In March, the Alaska Supreme Court ruled against state troopers who flew a plane over a suspect's house and took pictures with a high-powered zoom lens to see if he was growing marijuana.

"The fact that a random person might catch a glimpse of your yard while flying from one place to another does not make it reasonable for law enforcement officials to take to the skies and train high-powered optics on the private space right outside your home without a warrant," the court found. "Unregulated aerial surveillance of the home with high-powered optics is the kind of police practice that is 'inconsistent with the aims of a free and open society.'"

The post Colorado Will Replace Cops With Drones for Some 911 Calls appeared first on Reason.com.

A 78-year-old woman whose home was mistakenly raided by a Denver SWAT team will now receive a nearly $3.8 million payout. The large sum comes as a result of a 2020 Colorado law that banned qualified immunity protections for police officers in the state, making civil rights lawsuits against police significantly more likely to succeed. 

On January 4th, 2022, Ruby Johnson, a retired postal worker, was sitting in her Denver home when she heard a police airhorn loudly commanding that she leave her home with her hands up. Johnson, who had recently showered and was only wearing a bathrobe, left her house to find a Denver SWAT team gathered outside her door.

The SWAT team had been sent to Johnson's home as part of an effort to recover a vehicle that had been stolen the previous day. According to Johnson's lawsuit, the stolen car had an iPhone inside, and the Find My app feature indicated that the phone was near Johnson's house. 

While the police officers had obtained a warrant to search Johnson's home, they did so using an affidavit that allegedly provided "false characterization" of how reliable the Find My app is, overstating how sure the police could be that the iPhone—and the truck—would be at Johnson's house.

According to Johnson's lawsuit, after receiving this warrant, the SWAT team aggressively searched her home, causing considerable damage to her belongings. Making matters worse, even though Johnson gave police her garage door opener and told them how to enter the garage's front door, police used a battering ram to enter the garage, destroying the door and door frame. Ultimately, the SWAT team found no sign of the truck or any other criminal activity. The officers left and later told Johnson's children that the department wouldn't pay Johnson for the considerable damage caused to her home.

Johnson filed a lawsuit with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Colorado in December 2022, alleging that the search was unlawful under the Colorado Constitution.

"Officers combed through Ms. Johnson's home for hours and found no evidence of anything even remotely connected to any criminal activity. The illegal search succeeded only in leaving the innocent Ms. Johnson traumatized," the complaint states. "Ms. Johnson's privacy, sense of safety, and peace in her home have been shattered since her house became the scene of a militarized criminal investigation. This illegal search has destroyed Ms. Johnson's sense of safety and security in the home that has been her castle for forty years."

On Monday, the ACLU of Colorado announced that Johnson had been awarded $3.76 million, including $1.26 million in compensatory damages and $2.5 million in punitive damages. In a press release, the ACLU largely credited the passage of a 2020 law that revoked police qualified immunity protections—which typically prevent law enforcement from being sued for Constitutional violations—for the victory.

"This is a small step toward justice for Ms. Johnson, but it is a critical case under our state's Constitution, for the first time affirming that police can be held accountable for invading someone's home without probable cause," Tim Macdonald, ACLU of Colorado Legal Director said on Monday. "The ACLU worked hard in the summer of 2020, with lots of other stakeholders, to create a right to sue for violations of the state Constitution."

The post 78-Year-Old Grandmother Awarded $3.8 Million After Illegal SWAT Raid appeared first on Reason.com.

Another day, another flight diversion — and lately it's not just bad behavior that is grounding flights. From loose bolts to an entire door panel flying off mid-flight, planes are falling apart a little too often these days. Which is what happened yet again on a United Airlines flight carrying 165 passengers. — Read the rest

The post United flight to Boston diverts when passengers notice "wing coming apart" (video) appeared first on Boing Boing.