San Francisco police are planning to launch a drone-first-responder pilot in SoMa this fall, testing a new use of police drones in the neighborhood as Southern Station prepares to absorb more territory and more calls for service under newly redrawn district boundaries.
While SFPD has already used drones for criminal investigations, critical incidents and real-time crime response across the city, the SoMa pilot would test a neighborhood-specific model that sends drones for a first look at calls for service in the area before officers arrive on scene. The real-time information would help triage calls.
Sworn officers would review drone footage to assess whether an officer is needed on site, and what information responding officers need before they get there, an SFPD spokesperson told Mission Local.
“Because our drones are flown by sworn officers, they could respond to a call and advise if the reason for the original call is no longer present,” SFPD spokesperson Evan Sernoffsky wrote in an emailed response. “This would shorten our response times.”
The department expects to use a combination of Skydio and Aerodome drone platforms, but the number and models are subject to change, Sernoffsky wrote. He did not specify how many drones would be deployed in SoMa.
SFPD has used drones across the city since 2024, after voters approved Proposition E, which expanded the department’s ability to use surveillance technology.
Since then, the department’s Real-Time Investigation Center has used drone footage alongside other technologies for investigations. SFPD drone flight logs show that SoMa has already been one of the department’s most active areas for drone use.
The drone pilot is expected to coincide with the Oct. 1 expansion of new police district boundaries, under which Southern Station will take on additional territory up to Market Street.
At a recent Board of Supervisors hearing, SFPD officials said Southern Station staffing had increased from 91 to 111 patrol officers since December 2025. But officials also said the new boundaries are expected to increase Southern Station’s calls for service by an estimated 23 percent.
Data shows police response times for lower-priority calls in SoMa have been as much as 55 percent slower than the citywide median, despite the neighborhood having one of the highest crime rates in the city.
Sernoffsky did not specify exactly which call types would be eligible for drone deployment, saying only that drones would be dispatched when additional information “could be valuable” to police before patrol officers respond. As an example, he cited an illegally parked car blocking traffic. If a drone finds the car is no longer there, an officer may no longer need to respond. Such calls are common and time-consuming, Sernoffsky said.
District 6 Supervisor Matt Dorsey, who represents SoMa, said he supports the drone-first-responder concept as a “force multiplier,” while cautioning that drones are not a substitute for police officers.
“I will be the first to say that a drone program is not a panacea for an understaffed police department,” Dorsey said in an interview.
He said San Francisco has not moved aggressively enough toward full police staffing and estimated that the department remains roughly 720 to 730 officers below recommended staffing levels.
Dorsey said the technology could reduce reliance on vehicle pursuits and improve safety by giving officers more accurate information before entering volatile situations.
Dorsey said that drone-first-responder programs are backed by research. He pointed to a July 2025 blog on the website of the International Association of Chiefs of Police, which describes drone-first-responder programs as a tool for agencies facing staffing shortages.
The post, labeled “sponsored content,” cites examples from San Francisco and other cities where drones were credited with faster scene assessment and reduced officer dispatches. It links prominently to marketing materials from Skydio, a drone vendor.
Reese Isbell, board president of the SoMa West Neighborhood Association, said he was concerned that drones would help improve police statistics on calls for response, but would not translate to meaningful responses to calls from residents.
“We’re not looking for solutions for statistics to get better for SFPD,” he said. “We’re looking for solutions for people who are on the ground suffering because of the public safety crises in SoMa.”
Dorsey said the drone program should not change how officer response times are recorded.
Sernoffsky said SFPD is still finalizing how it will quantify response times, including whether drone arrivals will be reflected in public response-time data. He said that drones will not substitute for adequate staffing at Southern Station.
“We are increasing staff at Southern Station,” Sernoffsky said. “We recently implemented eight foot-beat officers on Sixth Street. Drones are just to add a new tool in our belt, to help us become more efficient and reduce calls that don’t require officers to respond.”
