Imperial County Sheriff | Drones
Eight of them, counted by the office itself in the disclosure state law requires. The policy they fly under is published as a scan nobody can read.
At a glance
- Drones
- 8. "ICSO has (8) Unmanned Aerial Vehicles" [1]
- Where the number comes from
- The office's own AB 481 annual military equipment report and inventory for fiscal year 2022-2023, which state law requires it to publish [1]
- Reported use that year
- "Two unmanned aerial vehicles flew to view the complete area around the target locations", during armed approaches supported by the armoured vehicle [1]
- Complaints reported
- "We have had no complaints or concerns regarding the use of military equipment" [1]
- Internal audits reported
- "No internal audits have been initiated due to no violation of policies" [1]
- Acquisitions that year
- "there was no acquisition of military equipment", and no plans to acquire more [1]
- Governing body
- The Imperial County Board of Supervisors, which the report names [1]
- The policy they fly under
- published but unreadable. Policy 707.1 is a scan produced on a copier in April 2022 with no text layer, so we have not read a word of it [2]
- Make, model and payload
- not established. The report gives a count and a category, not a description [1]
- What was approved, when, and at what cost
- not established. The Board of Supervisors publishes through a host closed to our tooling, so we have read no contract or dollar figure for this county [3]
How it happened
- Context
Policy 707.1, published and unreadable
The Use of Military Equipment policy is published on the Sheriff's Mandated Disclosures page as a PDF produced on a Canon copier. It has no text layer, so its contents are not established. [2]
- Deployment
The office counts its own equipment
The AB 481 annual report and Appendix A inventory for fiscal year 2022-2023 record eight unmanned aerial vehicles, a Lenco Bearcat armoured vehicle, two recreational vehicles modified into dispatch and operations command posts, 94 tear gas and 59 smoke grenades, 1,100 FN-303 munitions, 87 rubber bullets and two FN-303 launchers. Every other category is reported as none. [1]
Eight
Most of what this site documents had to be prised out of somewhere. This did not. The Imperial County Sheriff’s Office counted its own drones and published the number, because a state law passed in 2021 told it to.
Appendix A of its annual military equipment inventory, under the first category:
- Unmanned, remotely piloted, powered aerial or ground vehicles: ICSO has (8) Unmanned Aerial Vehicles
Eight aircraft, in a county of well under a quarter of a million people. That is a larger fleet than most agencies on this site have disclosed, and the figure is not an estimate or a reporter’s count. It is the agency’s own.
The same appendix lists a Lenco Bearcat armoured vehicle, two recreational vehicles converted into dispatch and operations command posts, 94 tear gas grenades, 59 smoke grenades, 1,100 FN-303 munitions, 87 rubber bullets and two launchers. Every other category on the statutory list, including weaponised vehicles, long-range acoustic devices and heavy calibre firearms, is reported as none.
What the law asked, and what the office answered
AB 481 does not just ask for a list. It asks how the equipment was used. Here is the whole answer for the year:
Armored vehicle provided protection to Sheriff’s personnel in making approaches to locations in which suspect or suspects had firearms. Two unmanned aerial vehicles flew to view the complete area around the target locations.
Two drones, flying overwatch on approaches to armed suspects. That is a narrow, tactical use, and it is the use a reasonable person would probably guess at if asked what a sheriff’s drone is for.
It is also the entire published account of eight aircraft for twelve months. We are not suggesting anything is missing from it. What we can say is that a fleet of eight, described by two flights, is a gap between capacity and disclosure that the report itself does not close.
The next two answers are the ones to read slowly:
We have had no complaints or concerns regarding the use of military equipment.
No internal audits have been initiated due to no violation of policies.
The second sentence gives the absence of a known violation as the reason no audit happened. Whether AB 481 requires audits on a schedule is a legal question and not ours to settle; the statute asks agencies to report audit results. What is worth noticing is the shape of the reasoning. An audit is one of the ways a violation gets found, so an audit programme triggered by known violations will not find the ones nobody has noticed.
The policy nobody can read
The Sheriff’s Office publishes Policy 707.1, Use of Military Equipment, on the same page. It is a PDF produced on a Canon copier in April 2022, and it is an image. There is no text layer in it at all. Text extraction returns zero characters.
So the document that governs how eight drones may be flown in this county is published, downloadable, and unreadable to any search engine, any screen reader, and anyone who cannot open a PDF and squint. We have not read a word of it, and this page makes no claim about what it says.
That is not a hidden document and we are not calling it one. It is a real limit on what publishing achieves. A scan on a website is available in a way a filing cabinet is not, and it is not searchable in the way the rest of that page’s contents are.
What we could not reach
Everything about the decision. Who approved these purchases, when, at what cost, and what the board was told is in a record this project cannot open: the Board of Supervisors publishes through a host whose robots file excludes automated readers.
So this page has a count and a use and nothing about the money. A browser reaches what we could not, and the board’s record is first on this county’s retrieval list.
One thing the law does guarantee, and it is the most useful thing here for anyone who wants a say. AB 481 requires the agency to hold at least one well-publicised community engagement meeting within thirty days of releasing each annual report, and requires the governing body to review the equipment ordinance every year, with the power to refuse a renewal. The Sheriff’s own page sets out both requirements in those words. Those are the rooms where eight drones are, by law, a thing the public gets to discuss.
What we do not know
- What Policy 707.1 says. It is the policy these drones fly under and it is published as a scan with no text layer.
- What the drones are, what they carry, and how often they fly. The report gives a count and one sentence.
- Whether AB 481 annual reports exist for the years after 2022-2023, and where.
- When the Board of Supervisors last conducted the annual review AB 481 requires, and when the last community engagement meeting was held.
- What approved and paid for this equipment. The county's board record is closed to our tooling.
What you can do
Show up
Systems like this one are approved by boards, councils and committees that meet in public. We have not yet confirmed where each of them meets in Imperial County.
What we have documented in Imperial County →Protect yourself
Practical steps to shrink your personal data trail. Our guides publish at launch; until then, EFF's Surveillance Self-Defense is the best starting point.
Surveillance Self-Defense →Sources
- 1.
- 2. Imperial County Sheriff's Office, Policy 707.1 "Use of Military Equipment", published as a scanned PDF with no text layer · Primary document · · accessed
- 3.
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