Police departments across the state of Texas are adopting policies that permit the use of weaponized drones equipped with the ability to assassinate or incapacitate.
While the civilian use of a weaponized drone is prohibited under the Part 107 Rule of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), these regulations only apply to state law enforcement agencies if the organization chooses to adopt it as its guide.
Therefore, states have wide latitude to set legislation determining how police agencies can employ them.
Texas law defines a drone as “an unmanned aircraft, watercraft, or ground vehicle or a robotic device” that is either controlled by a human or “operates autonomously through computer software or other programming.”
Statutory law then limits the weaponization of these kinds of drones to only when certain conditions have been met.
Firstly, the drone must be controlled by someone currently employed by a law enforcement agency and not merely by a computer program or artificial intelligence. Secondly, the law enforcement agency must have “adopted and submitted to the Texas Commission on Law Enforcement a policy on the agency’s use of force by means of a drone” before the deployment.
The implementation of a weaponized drone must also otherwise conform to the agency’s use of force policy.
Several cities in Texas appear to have adopted policies for weaponized drone operations at the discretion of local police chiefs.
For example, Dallas Police Department identifies that the deployment of drones equipped with weapons systems of any kind is “prohibited unless authorized by the Chief of Police,” as previously reported by The Dallas Express.
The Grand Prairie Police Department similarly allows for the use of deadly force by drones so long as it conforms to the relevant Texas laws. “The use of force by a drone is justified if it meets any of the justification provisions found in Chapter 9, Subchapter E, Texas Penal Code,” the policy states.
Grand Prairie also clarifies and reaffirms the statutory prohibition against non-human controlled drones implementing force: “The use of deadly force by means of an autonomous drone functioning through computer software or other programming, without a human operator, is prohibited.”
Agencies across the nation have even considered adopting policies similar to those implemented by some Texas agencies. The San Francisco Board of Advisors had previously approved an ordinance granting the police the ability to use weaponized drones, but this decision was quickly reversed due to public backlash.
On the other hand, several Texas police departments have decided against including weaponized drones in their tactical arsenals.
For example, the Athens Police Department has decided to operate under the FAA’s Part 107 guideline. “The UAS [unmanned aircraft system] shall not be weaponized but shall fall under the Use of Force Continuum, as defined in Texas Penal Code Chapter 9, if utilized as a Use of Force option.”
In San Antonio, police policy states that no small drones “may carry hazardous materials” or carry weapons.
However, the operating procedures for the Special Operations Section of the San Antonio Police Department noted that “in the normal course of use, drones should not be considered as a force option.”
It continued, nevertheless, to dictate that “in critical incidents that may require extraordinary counter measures to end the public safety threat, a plan that utilizes a drone must be approved by the chief of police or their designees prior to implementation.”
As police departments and law enforcement agencies across Texas and the nation wrestle over the various uses of drone technology, concern persists regarding safety, privacy, and weaponization.
As mentioned earlier, the Dallas police department has explicitly authorized aerial drones to use lethal force once approved by the police chief, and while drones have not been used in this capacity yet, Dallas did use a ground-based robot to kill a shooter in 2016.
Additionally, hundreds of hours of helicopter footage from Dallas police was leaked after a hack showing the allegedly arbitrary surveillance of crowds, people in the backyards, and other similar scenes.
