Evanston’s drone program remains on the ground

By CHIARA KIM daily senior staffer @chiarafkim

In 2020, the Evanston Police and Fire Departments jointly purchased a drone capable of thermal image-enhanced search and rescue and crowd management, among other functions.

The Unmanned Aerial Vehicle program is meant to increase efficiency during rescue and other operations, according to a police and fire department presentation from 2020. But three years later, the departments have only used the drone once. Activist groups in Chicago and nationwide have raised concerns about drone usage, though EPD Sgt. Scott Sophier, who coordinates the UAV program, said the city will continue to use it on a case-by-case basis.

Sophier said limited staffing prevents the police department from using the drone more frequently.

“We did deploy the drone on an official call for service in 2021 to assist the Skokie Police Department with a missing juvenile who was believed to have possibly entered the water,” he said. “And we’ve trained with the drone.”

He also said the department deployed the drones to several calls, but it arrived after the issues had been resolved by EPD or EFD.

EPD has no plans to use the drone more or less, Sophier said, but rather intends to keep the drone “ready and available with personnel trained to deploy it if and when necessary.”

Evanston’s drone program follows a national trend of police departments purchasing drones, according to the Atlas of Surveillance, a database documenting surveillance technologies used by law enforcement agencies.

Dave Maass, director of investigations at Electronic Frontier Foundation, led the Atlas of Surveillance project. He said the number of U.S. law enforcement agencies using drones grew from a dozen in 2012 to at least 1,220 to date.

Four winners selected in Evanston’s first-ever joint youth art contest

While Maass said drones can be beneficial for search and rescue purposes and crime photography, he said he’s worried they can also be used haphazardly.

“What I am definitely concerned about is using drones to surveil people engaged in First Amendment activities, (such as) people protesting,” he said.

He also said the city should maintain transparency around drones, such as keeping a public log of drone activities detailing the times, flight plans and outcomes. The Illinois Freedom from Drone Surveillance Act, however, prohibits EPD from

Council selected four winners in the city’s first-ever youth art contest.

The prompt for the contest was the question, “What comes to mind when you think of reparations?”

The four winners are Maia Faith Hadaway, a UCLA student; Asiah Williams, an Evanston disclosing information gathered by their drone.

Policymakers need to understand how police drones can affect communities unequally, Maass said, and should evaluate whether drones are a good use of public resources.

“Something, for example, that you would want to know is are they using drones in Black neighborhoods more frequently than in other neighborhoods,” he said. “That could be indicative of using technology to further promote racial inequity in policing.”

Charles Johnson, organizing director of Chicago

Township High School student; and Margo Stonebraker and Javahya Wright, both Haven Middle School students. All four will receive a $200 prize.

Their works — available in the city’s news release — include images of kids playing; someone unlocking doors labeled Education, Housing and Businesses; a heart with a band-aid; and imagery

Area Peace Action, said he thinks the drone program should end.

Johnson said he’d like to see Evanston build trust instead of using technology that steers the police department toward the potential for “control, domination surveillance.”

“(The drone) is being treated like this is the future of safety,” he said. “I would encourage the city to consider all the more holistic and community-based types of safety that are available.” chiarakim2025@u.northwestern.edu related to slavery and the Underground Railroad. EAC and the Reparations Committee opened the contest in September, asking Evanston residents and students between 2 and 22 to submit any form of multimedia art in response to the question prompt.

Aviva Bechky