Sonoma County Sheriff | Drones

What the inventory lists

The office’s 2023 military equipment annual report, published under the state law that requires agencies to account for this equipment each year, lists unmanned aerial vehicles as separate rows. It gives three DJI Mavic Mini at $600 each, marked “used for training purposes”, and two DJI Mavic Enterprise Dual at $5,000, marked “donation funded”. It gives one Parrot Anafi Thermo at $1,300 and one Parrot Anafi at $800, which it records as donated. It gives two DJI Phantom 4 at $500, one DJI Mavic 2 Zoom at $1,200 and one DJI Mavic Air at $900. It gives one DJI M30T, whose cost the document prints as “$15.000.00” in its own punctuation. It gives one Loki MKII at $14,933.00, described in the report as a “Remotely deployed interior drone” that “Allows S.W.A.T. to remotely enter a structure to see, hear, and communicate with a suspect.”^[1] The report states no total for the aircraft, and the rows are not added together here. The line “This drone is used for training purposes” appears against five of the models.^[1]

Our text extraction of this report drops the letter pairs “ti” and “fi”; the quotations above and below restore them, and the wording is otherwise the document’s own.

How much they flew

The report gives a figure for the year. It says the office “deployed Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (Drones) for a total of 19 missions, not including training flights,” and that “The total flight times for these missions was approximately 14 hours 3 minutes.” On what the flights were for, it says the goals “ranged from locating missing persons, law enforcement emergency/crime scenes, to providing a tactical advantage for high-risk situations.”^[1] Which aircraft flew those missions, the report does not say.

What the policy says

Policy 606 of the Sheriff’s policy manual, stamped June 15, 2022, governs the aircraft. Section 606.5 is headed PROHIBITED USE and opens “The UAS video surveillance equipment shall not be used”. The list that follows runs: “To conduct random surveillance activities. To target a person based solely on actual or perceived characteristics, such as race, ethnicity, national origin, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, economic status, age, cultural group, or disability. To harass, intimidate, or discriminate against any individual or group. To conduct personal business of any type.” The section closes “The UAS shall not be weaponized.”^[2]

Section 606.6 sets what happens to the recording. “Upon completion of each sUAS mission, the recorded data shall be reviewed and evaluated for evidentiary value by the sUAS Commander or authorized designee. Data of identifiable individuals captured during a sUAS mission shall not be retained unless there is reasonable suspicion that evidence of criminal activity is present.” The limit binds data of identifiable individuals rather than every frame the aircraft records. Data that is kept “shall be maintained or destroyed pursuant to the Sheriff’s Records retention and evidence policies.”^[2]

What the rest of the report shows

The same annual report covers the office’s other reportable equipment. The armored vehicle section states that “The Bearcat ARV was deployed nine times during this reporting period,” and the report narrates each of those incidents by month. The robot section states that “The Avatar robot was not deployed during this reporting period” and that “There are no known complaints associated with the possession of this robot during this reporting period.” The robot itself, an AVATAR III by Robotex, is listed at $25,000, quantity one.^[1]

What it does not establish

The 2023 report is the most recent inventory we have for the office. We did not locate the 2024 or 2025 annual reports on this pass. The report gives a mission count for the year and does not break it out by aircraft, so how much any one model flew is not established. Whether Policy 606 has been revised since its June 2022 stamp is unread here.