CHULA VISTA, Calif. — The second largest city in San Diego County is leading the nation in the use of police drones.
Over the past four years, the Chula Vista Police Department has paved the way, rather airways, for police departments across the nation for the deployment of drones to assist and protect officers in the line of duty.
But has the program been effective in deterring crime and catching criminals and at what cost to privacy?
The police department says the drones are not used as a surveillance tool. It also says that the data will not be sold, or disseminated, nor will it be used to bolster other types of digital surveillance programs such as facial recognition, automated license plate readers, and streetlight cameras.
CBS 8 dug into the number of calls since 2022, the outcomes, as well as a legal challenge that may result in the department, as well as departments across the state and the nation, having to turn over the videos that the drones capture while flying over public streets and private property.
The drone program
Due to the city's proximity to the border, its size, and San Diego County's large military presence, Chula Vista has been coined one of the most heavily surveilled cities in the country.
Its drone program, seen as a model for other agencies nationwide, is now adding to that label.
Chula Vista Police say the drone program is to "enhance" emergency calls for service.
The drones are expected to stay clear of any areas a person would expect to have privacy such as inside private buildings, per the department's use statement online. This general policy can be overridden by a judge-issued warrant or in emergencies, which falls under the department's discretion.
The department's drone operators are in charge of determining which call is deemed as an emergency, meaning they can fly to crime and accident scenes, search for missing or wanted people, check fires, or view the damage of a major disaster.
They do so from five launch sites throughout the city that cover three square miles, the majority of the geographic area of Chula Vista.
Who's watching the department?
Because of the privacy concerns over Chula Vista leading the "Smart Cities" movement, which includes its myriad surveillance technologies, the city council created a privacy task force in 2022.
The Privacy Protection and Technology Advisory Commission is similar to San Diego's Privacy Advisory Board, which is a team of experts appointed to advise the council on surveillance tech and how to improve its management and security.
It's taken a bit for Chula Vista's task force to fully get off the ground. The group selected its Chair and Vice Chair on March 11.
How long the footage collected is stored in the system depends on what the drone camera captures. Per Chula Vista Police policy, all footage that doesn't contain a crime should only be stored for 90 days.
But the footage that is going to be used for evidence can be stored anywhere between two to five years, according to the department's retention policy. Homicides appear to be the one outlier in this rule — the footage is expected to be permanently retained.
The numbers
Just how has the program helped in terms of solving crimes?
CBS 8 submitted a public records request for the total number of drone flights from January 2022 through February 13, 2024.
Those numbers show that the department dispatched drones a total of 8,883 times over the period. On average, that comes out to more than 11 flights a day.
As for the types of calls that the Chula Vista Police Department dispatches the drones, data obtained by CBS 8 shows the vast majority of flights, or 17% of the total number of calls, were to check out general disturbance calls.
The next highest category of calls, which amounted to 11% of flights, were for what the department labeled as "protected call type" meaning no reason was provided to CBS 8, even though the data on drone flights turned over to CBS 8 included homicides (2 calls), prostitution (2 calls), weapons at schools (1), and arson (42 calls).
The result
Of the 8,883 police drone flights in Chula Vista since January 2022, only 21 resulted in an arrest or citation, according to the data.
The vast majority, or 66%, of drone flights were initiated to assist officers on calls. In all, 32% of flights did not result in a written report.
Why it matters?
In recent years, police agencies have continued to push for the use of digital surveillance to aid in their investigations.
However, some argue the department hasn't been transparent with its use of the drone technology.
That alleged lack of transparency is seen in how Chula Vista Police labels the calls where drones are used.
According to documents obtained by CBS 8, the second-highest call type where drones were used was listed as "protected call type."
When CBS 8 asked for more explanation on what that meant, the department responded that it could not answer due to pending litigation.
The litigation the department refers to is a costly, and long-running court case filed by Art Castañares, the publisher of San Diego's La Prensa newspaper, which could soon make its way to the California Supreme Court,
Castañares v. Chula Vista PD
In 2021, Castañaresfiled a request with the department for drone footage to see how police were using the drone technology. Chula Vista Police denied the request, claiming all video footage that its drones captured is considered "investigative records," meaning it was exempt from the California Public Records Act.
Castañares, represented by open-government attorney Cory Briggs, then sued the city to compel the release of the footage. A trial court sided with Chula Vista in April 2023. But California's Fourth District Appeals Court San Diego ruled in December of that year and sided with Castañares -- Chula Vista could not use a blanket exemption for all drone footage.
It's an important ruling, said Castañares, for all residents.
"People should care. I care because I live in Chula Vista," said Castañares. "This is a police camera. While body-worn cameras record everything that they see, drones are different in that a police officer can't jump into your backyard with a camera and record without a warrant. With drones, however, they can fly over our houses and look into the backyard with no warrant, with no suspicious activity, they can just see everything that's going on. And so we want to make sure that they're not misusing the drones as a platform as a surveillance platform."
Castañares said Chula Vista has already spent hundreds of thousands on outside attorneys to fight his lawsuit and if it does go to California's High Court, that cost will likely increase. Castañares believes the city is fighting so hard because the fate of similar drone programs across the state and possibly the nation could be undermined if the city loses in court.
Proving Castañares' point, law enforcement groups across the state have petitioned state court judges to factor in the importance and the need to keep police drone programs running to protect officer safety, drive down personnel costs, and improve investigatory capabilities through the combined use of other digital surveillance methods.
In a letter of support for Chula Vista, the Los Angeles Police Chiefs Association urged the State Supreme Court to hear the case and side with the city.
Among their arguments, is that drone footage can be combined with other surveillance tools to bolster the investigative capacity of departments across the state.
"The data can be integrated with other sources, such as public-safety cameras or satellite feeds and [Automatic License Plate Readers] and enhanced by analytical technologies such as facial recognition software or other [Artificial Intelligence]," reads the letter of support from the Los Angeles County Police Chiefs’ Association.
Castañares said the statement that the footage from drone footage may be used in conjunction with other surveillance measures is the reason why he is asking the city and the courts for more transparency.
"That could mean there would potentially be one stream of data that can be compiled with other streams of data," said Castañares. "If the police want to find you or me, now they have all these different platforms at their disposal. And we're not even saying that that's illegal. What we're saying is they're not telling the public what they're doing. And they're not disclosing exactly how they're using the technology."
CBS 8 reached out to the Chula Vista Police Department for comment. A spokesperson for the department declined to comment due to pending litigation.
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