From: Gary Brady
To: _CityCouncilListPublic
Subject: [EXTERNAL] Drone program
Date: Thursday, January 23, 2025 7:54:53 AM
Dear Sirs,
Last night we attended the introduction to drones hosted by the police department. It was very informative, and the program appears to have an advantages for all the residents of Santa Rosa we support such a program.
Sincerely
Gary Brady
From: Andrew Smith
To: _CityCouncilListPublic; CMOffice
Cc: Nutt, Jason; Dunston, Daryel
Subject: [EXTERNAL] New police drone program sparks debate over privacy and policing in Santa Rosa Date: Wednesday, January 22, 2025 9:47:04 AM
A Press Democrat reader has shared the following article with you. https://www.pressdemocrat.com/article/news/police-drone-santa-rosa- sonoma/?utm_source=article_share&utm_medium=email
City Council members and City Manager,
Our city is a safe city and you can thank Police Chief Cregan for helping to make it like that. Don’t take it for granted as he is always looking to be proactive on stopping gangs in our city from returning. Getting off the streets drugs like fentanyl which kill people. And he is responsive to the Santa Rosa community.
He is the person responsible for the very successful InReponse program to send health care workers for non-police 911 calls.
Drones are currently in use for Santa Rosa Police Department with 12 operators and the acknowledgement that additional training is needed for expanding the use of drones. This would be for a first responder use so what is wrong with that?
While “privacy advocates and civil liberties groups warn of potential misuse and oversight concerns,” you can say that about a lot of police programs that are proactive to stop crime. In fact, when there is a spike in crime, who suffers the most? The low-income people! Let me remind you when those people came up to our city a few years back taking over our streets with their car shows. The city council told Cregan and the police department to stand down. Until the people most affected were in Roseland got upset and the city council finally allowed Police Chief Cregan and the Santa Rosa Police Department to shut down these car shows. You don’t see them coming up here anymore. They go to Oakland and Vallejo instead.
Please have faith in Police Chief Cregan. He is doing this expansion program of drones for the better use of our police department which like most police departments today, have trouble recruiting new members.
Our city benefits from it.
Andrew Smith
Santa Rosa