NC sheriffs say Chinese drones are critical to public safety. Congress may ground them anyway.

STATESVILLE, N.C. (WBTV) - As an hours-long standoff played out in Mooresville this weekend, an Iredell County sheriff’s drone hovered overhead while feeding a livestream to Sheriff Darren Campbell at a conference hours away.

In April, it was a drone alongside K-9 officers that located a man running from Edgecombe County sheriff’s deputies after a car chase reached speeds of over 100mph.

When a little girl went missing in the rural stretches of northern Iredell County in March, drone pilot Sgt. Patrick Irwin found her.

“Within 10 minutes of me getting there and putting up the drone, I found her about a mile away from the house,” Irwin said.

Each of these drones shares a commonality: they were made by DJI, a Chinese company in the crosshairs of Congress.

National security concerns ramp up

Security concerns surrounding DJI and other Chinese-made drones have been around for years but are ramping up with the passage of a bill in December preventing federal agencies from purchasing them.

At least four states have passed either restrictions or total bans on local law enforcement agencies utilizing Chinese-made drones in their operations.

A new bipartisan bill could effectively make those restrictions far more widespread, impacting government agencies and private users alike.

The New York Times reported Thursday that Congress is also now considering legislation that could block the drones from using the country’s communication infrastructure, effectively disabling their use nationwide.

DJI has repeatedly rebuffed the allegations that their drones can be used to spy on Americans.

“DJI places the highest priority on data privacy – and puts customers in control of their data’s use,” their official blog stated in January. “Our rival drone-makers are stirring up xenophobia to eliminate market competition.”

NC sheriffs: Drones critical to public safety

In a survey of every sheriff’s office in North Carolina, officials took varying perspectives on how seriously they viewed the security threat of DJI drones in their everyday use.

What no one disputed, however, was the critical force that drones have come to play in local law enforcement and public safety. The fact that those drones are usually made by DJI is reflective of the company’s years-long history as the leading drone manufacturer across the globe, with competitors only recently starting to make strides in equivalent technology.

“They’re the leader in the industry right now,” Irwin explained. He started the drone program at the Iredell County Sheriff’s Office in 2018, and takes pride in staying thoroughly researched in drone technology and news developments.

For him, DJI drones don’t represent a security threat when used in the way his agency uses them: primarily for finding suspects and missing people.

“We’re a very rural county,” he explained. “We don’t check critical infrastructure, we don’t patrol our borders.”

An official with the Mitchell County Sheriff’s Office was much more blunt in a phone call with WBTV about the survey.

“It’s a little ridiculous,” he said of the security concerns. “The phones we’re using to talk to each other are made in China.”

Edgecombe County Sheriff’s captain Wilson Muse considers the security threats legitimate but can’t do much to swap the agency’s donor-gifted drone for a more expensive or less advanced American version.

“I think they’re legitimate, coming from the federal government,” Muse said. “These are security concerns...but the obstacle for everything in law enforcement is cost.”

In 2024, doing the job without them is out of the question.

“It’s worth its weight in gold,” Irwin said.

Vast majority of NC sheriffs use DJI drones

WBTV surveyed each of North Carolina’s 100 sheriff’s offices, with thirty-four responding prior to publishing.

All but one of those responding used Chinese-made drones; several didn’t have a drone program at all or relied on drones owned by their county’s EMS agency. A couple claimed to use American drones but said the brand was DJI – the Chinese-made brand at the heart of national controversy.

Three agencies said as a result of the concerns raised by WBTV, they were requesting money to change their DJI drones to American-made.

Documents obtained by WBTV showed the NC Sheriffs Association listed DJI as a potential vendor in this year’s procurement program.

“The decision on whether or not to purchase items listed in our program is up to the analysis and decision of the purchaser” NCSA executive vice president Eddie Caldwell said in an email.

“The purpose of our program is to get the best price on products for agencies that the agency may or may not select to purchase.”

American-made drones either too costly or not good enough

A drone’s price largely depends on its capabilities, ranging from a couple to tens of thousands of dollars.

Bells and whistles like thermal imaging technology and massive zoom capabilities typically mean law enforcement is using a pricier drone than a hobbyist whose primary purpose is capturing footage.

Law enforcement drone pilots told WBTV that those extra technologies, up until recently, often weren’t present in American-made competitors or were simply too pricey when compared to DJI counterparts.

“I think the American products I’ve looked at are amazing, but they’re just cost prohibitive for us at this time,” Edgecombe County’s captain Muse explained.

His county’s EMS department recently explored purchasing a fancy American-made drone, but the cost would have been $20,000 annually for five years.

“There’s a lot of competition for the budget money, particularly in a mostly lower-income rural county like ours,” Muse said.

Several agencies including Iredell County pointed out that while they utilized DJI drones, they opted out of using the software that came with it and instead programmed the drones with American software.

If the federal government wants local law enforcement to shelve their Chinese-made drones, however, Cpt. Muse has what he considers a reasonable expectation: pay them to do it because it’s unlikely his county board will.

“Some sort of financial assistance program would be really great,” he said.

“When there was a big push to roll out body cameras for all officers nationwide, there were pretty significant grant programs that helped us offset the cost of doing that. I’d love to see something like that with the drones.”

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