Citywide Drone Response in Action - Lessons From Wichita

Alright. Welcome, everyone. Imagine a world where every second saves a life, a world where technology and human courage fuse together in the ultimate pursuit of safety, trust, and public progress. My name is Phil Gonshak, and for the past 25 years, I've stood at the crossroads of urgency and innovation serving as not just a police officer, but a chief of police, a county manager, and during my time with the Denver Police Department helping launch their drone program to reimagine first response in a major urban setting.

Every day, public safety professionals encounter the unpredictable, those moments where the right tool and right insight make all the difference.

That mission led me to Skydio where drones are not just gadgets in the sky, but catalyst for transparency, accountability, and even hope. Our technology empowers agencies to rewrite future harness breakthroughs that save life, protect communities, and transform how we see the world. But this revolution isn't limited to just public safety.

Imagine reshaping every facet of public government for the better. Imagine a future where city planners, emergency responders, infrastructure specialists, and even environmental teams all harness autonomous drones to build more transparent, effective, and responsive institutions.

Drones illuminate city infrastructure. They inspect bridges and utilities, safeguard natural resources, and pioneer new standards and even accountability, all while enabling government to act faster, smarter, and more collaborate more collaboratively than ever before. Today, you're not just attendees, you're partners in this evolution, and I'm honored to be joined by extrude two extraordinary panelists, catalysts in their own right, who share this passion for innovation across public service.

Get ready for insights, inspiration, and a new vision for what's possible as autonomous tools make our government more dynamic, more transparent, and more human.

Up next, we're gonna talk a little bit about what Skydio does and how it does, response here in the city of Wichita, police department specifically.

In 2024, they developed a purchase of six X10s or Skydio X10s, had two pilot classes through Wichita State University, so we'll give a shout out to them, for a total of six pilots.

Today, now in 2025, they're flying with three docks, six X10s, hosted three pilot classes, and now have twenty nine pilots, city of Wichita Police Department. Some may ask throughout this webinar, why DFR?

Number one, faster response times for your police departments and fire departments and emergency responders and city officials, a greater ability to assess the situations that are before everybody.

They'll guide responses for the safest direction in for both ingress and egress, reduce the risks of harm for everybody involved, integrate arctic or real time information centers and transport, and assist other city departments like infrastructure inspection, public works, parks and recreation, or even fire departments.

Before we get deeper involved, I'm gonna introduce our panelists.

First, we have mayor Lily Wu. Welcome, Miss Wu. Nice to have you. She was elected mayor of Wichita, Kansas in November 2023 and was sworn in as the city of Wichita's 103rd mayor on January 8, 2024.

Mayor Lily is the first woman elected to a full term in the largest city in Kansas.

She is the first Asian American mayor in the state of Kansas. She's been a Wichitaan, I hope I said that right, since 1993 when her family integrated to Wichita for Guatemala.

Mayor Lily was an award winning local television journalist and is a proud alumna of Wichita Public Schools, including Wichita High School East, Wichita State University, and the University of Hong Kong.

As mayor, she champions an inclusive vision for the entire city, focusing on ensuring public safety and strengthening the economy, restoring trust in city hall, and building a united community. If we had a round of applause, I'd give it for you there, Lou. Up next, we have Chief Joseph Sullivan.

Chief Joseph Sullivan has served as the chief of Wichita Police Department since November 2022, bringing more than three decades of law enforcement experience with the Philadelphia Police Department. He holds a BA in administration of justice from Penn State University and an MA in public safety from Saint Joseph's University. He's also a graduate of the FBI National Academy.

Since joining Wichita Police Department, Chief Sullivan has prioritized building transparent relationships within the department and the community, advancing technology and capabilities, and then putting innovative strategies to combat violent crime.

Your leadership has, led the department and embraced a culture of accountability, collaboration, and continuous improvement.

Chief Sullivan remains committed to community engagement, officer wellness, and evidence based constitutionally sound policing practices.

He believes that trust and legitimacy are earned through consistent integrity, open communication, and a shared commitment to public safety. As I'm sure the rest of the Wichita believe in you and, the mayor, welcome to the both of you, and thank you for joining us here.

Alright. So let's get started. We've run through a number of, iterations of this before, but happy to finally be in front of a live audience. First question is actually for you, mayor. And as discussed, kind of if you wouldn't mind helping the audience understand how you support technology improvements within the city from a mayoral perspective specifically?

Well, first, thank you, Phil, and thank you to the entire team at Skydio and all the participants who are online with us today. Really appreciate that you are all interested in seeing how technology can better serve your citizens.

For me, I've been a Wichitaan, so you said it correctly, since 1993, and I really understand, that our community has always seen public safety as not just, a city function, but also a community function as well. And so when I ran for office, one of my top priorities was ensuring public safety.

And so, through my career as a journalist for twelve years, I got to see the Wichita Police Department, in a different, perspective.

And that was in sharing, the work that they did in our community, but more specifically how they utilized technology. So back in twenty eleven, I was still a reporter back then, they did the first pilot program for body worn cameras. And I remember doing the stories, about this technology, and now our department, is fully, equipped with that technology.

But when we first started, it was back then when we only had 20 cameras.

And so I've seen that evolution of, how you are a a department, and Wichita is very much in the embracing of innovation type of mentality, and that is partly because of who we are.

So Wichita, the nickname for Wichita is actually the air capital of the world, And that is because in the nineteen twenties and thirties, we had a lot of aviation manufacturing that, started right here in the heart of America in Wichita. And so that nickname has continued.

Well, for me, coming into office in 2024, air stands for something, different. It stands for aviation, which is our history, and aviation and its evolution into drones.

I really believe that that's who we are. The I for air is innovation, and that is why I'm so supportive of, Chief Sullivan's, mission of integrating technology.

And lastly, the R is about research and making sure it's evidence based.

And so we have really great partnerships with educational partners like Wichita State University, which you mentioned, and is also my alma mater, but also WSU Tech and their, aviation training center. So I see all those things, that have come together to to really support, the chief in his, goals of, really providing public safety, but also integrating technology into that public safety.

Great. Thank you for that response. Have you found any challenges in in gaining community support for any of these innovations at all?

I think one of the good things about being an early adopter is that you start, really gaining the trust of community. As I mentioned, body worn cameras and that conversation started back in 2011. And so now you see a department fully equipped with body worn cameras. And so, over time, we added in license plate readers, the drone technology, soon to be real information, real time information center. So these are all, things that over time, as you gradually build trust with community and you continue sharing openly what these, technologies do, the benefits of, I think that that helps with, mitigating some of the challenges in community not buying in with technology.

Great. And that kinda leads into chief, I I have a question kinda follow-up and leading into that same topic. What specific leadership challenges have you faced with the community regarding your public safety team's responses, specifically as it relates to, you know, tactical mission specific drones? Have you had or have to handle anything like that lately or throughout the process for implementing your drone program?

Well, we're going to introduce new technology and, you know, drone has somewhat of a negative there's gonna be some concern within the community for for privacy. I have they all have some degree of privacy concerns. And one of the things that, we worked up with Skydio, together, we developed a a big dashboard so that every flight we we we launch is in near real time posted to this publicly available public facing dashboard.

And, you know, the ability to go to community meetings, which is what we did. We did a lot of, work with the community, community listening sessions before this program began explaining how we were gonna use the drones. But I can't I I can't tell you what a difference it made being able to tell people that they they would be able to go on, a website twenty four seven. And if they saw one of our drones in their backyard, they could find out exactly why, we had put that drone up, how long it was up for, what was the purpose. So that that was critically important.

The other thing was becoming FAA compliant.

When I arrived, my initial goal was to enhance the existing drone program, but I soon found out that, we just had to start from scratch and work to become FAA compliant. And I'm glad we did. It took a lot longer than we would have hoped, but now we have a quality program that's among the best in the nation and it's growing each and every day. My goal was to have 24/7 availability, and as you noted, we now have twenty one trained drone operators, and our partnership with WSU Tech is what made that possible.

They have been fantastic in providing instructors to quickly, get our personnel through training and and get their FAA licenses, because we are the largest department in Kansas. So this is something that, our officers have a right to expect to have this technology available to them twenty fourseven. And our community has a right to expect the same thing. And I think in the last year, we have really demonstrated how important this technology is and how it saves lives.

It helps us write our response.

It helps us find lost children, a multitude of of different things that is done to benefit our community. And we don't get any further resistance on our program because of the fact that we got out early into the community.

We explained everything, and this transparency dashboard is just made it just a game changer.

Speaking of your transparency dashboard, I put it up there on the screen for everybody to see. We use this quite a bit when we're talking to other agencies and other local government officials how fantastic and remarkable the way that the transparency dashboard works. Where on the left side of the screen, you can actually see, the date and time, sometimes the telemetry depending on the department, but specifically you all post the actual trajectory of where the drone went over locations with the overlay of the map of where it was, which in my opinion, as as both a chief and accounting manager, if somebody was ever questioning where they would look or see where the drone was was at, this is just an easy dashboard for those who don't know that's posted on your city website for a simple click of somebody to see able to see where they over my house.

Why or why not? So thank you again for for posting that and making it known to the rest of the group. We're getting a few questions as they're coming in. I'd like to invite everybody to go ahead and post your questions as they're as they're at the top of your mind.

And what we'll do is at the very end of this, about fifteen minutes before, we'll we'll close our portion, but then open it up to q and a so that the mayor and the chief happy to answer your guys' questions.

Okay.

Chief, back to you. How has Wichita's drone technology shifted the emergency response mindset from one of vulnerability to now one of vigilance? Obviously, being in the forefront and the leader there in the state of Kansas, what does that look like for you, and how does that make you feel for your office?

Well, for me, the important aspects of putting together a valuable drone program was we found the right person, and that would be Kevin Bartel from our department.

He was put in charge of this project, and he was told to start from scratch. And then we chose the right product, and I'm not I'm not doing a Skydio commercial here. We have been extremely happy with the product and the capability and the durability and the responsiveness, of Skydio.

When when we've had a question or a problem, we realized early on we want to stick to a US made drone and Skydio fit that.

And then the right policy. We put together a policy that, we we have posted publicly.

Before we did that, we ran we had our citizen review board take a look at it, and we we we also sought public input on that as well.

Right the right training. WSU Tech filled that gap for us and then we're messaging, and I'm sure we'll talk more about that later, the different ways we do to promote to the public our use of drone, technology and the dashboard that we just talked about. But, we have seen the utilization of Skydio drones on critical incidents where we are a department that is very invested in de escalation. We're an ICAT department, and the the Skydio drones have fit in perfectly with that. We have utilized them on barricaded subjects and subjects where, as you'll see in the video, we have people with guns to their heads.

In this in this video, this person was barricaded and he refused to communicate with the police.

You can't tell from this video, but we flew the drone down a very narrow alleyway in a under very windy conditions and, the sky to your stability, aspects worked as they should.

And when the individual saw the drone, he he literally surrendered to the drone peacefully.

He had been firing out that window, and this is right in center city of Wichita. He had he was firing in a direction of a public park. So it it it was an extreme situation that ended peacefully.

But wouldn't have done so without the drone. Special events.

Our our largest is an outdoor nine day concert called Riverfest and absolutely invaluable for monitoring crowd movements.

We're pairing the drone up with the radio system. The drone's gonna get on on scene of a fight, faster than we will, trying to get through an extremely, extremely thick crowd, and we can begin to move the nearest officers in. We had another problem with people on a nearby balcony that were interfering with the, with with with the performance, and they were quite surprised when when a drone showed up on the balcony. And we were able to speak to them through the drone and warn them to stop what they were doing.

But again, it, you know, it ended with any type of confrontation.

It is really drones have helped us right size our response even during normal patrol operations, finding small children, things of that nature. We were just recognized nationally for our property crimes task force. And, just one more example of how we've used the drones, to prevent pursuits, to apprehend, some of our most prolific property crime offenders.

That was a large problem here in Wichita. And this year, property crime is down, and and the drones have contributed, significantly to that effort as they have to to violent crime. And that's why we're so excited that we're about to begin our our DFR program.

Yeah. The speaker works really well when you're obviously giving prerecorded messages or even on the fly messages from your pilot. So appreciate you using those and and keeping your community even safer with utilization of such. Alright, Mary.

We're gonna come back to you. And next question is what unique strategic value do drones provide to Wichita as a modern city? Specifically, how does Skydio, help you out with that? And then, obviously, with the docks coming, what do you think that's gonna look like as far as modernizing and keeping Wichita safe?

Well, I'm really looking forward to the pilot starting and hear a bit about our city. I think it's important to kinda, level set with the type of community, this is. So our population is just over four hundred thousand people. The MSA is about six hundred thousand people. And so this is a pretty big city, and it's very spread out. The city of Wichita is divided up into six districts.

And what I've appreciated about Chief Sullivan and his team is that they're very data driven.

So when this pilot program, was first introduced as a concept, we were told, let's look at the calls in specific areas of town. And what happened was, they chose a specific area, district number three, to start this pilot.

And that is because there were so many, calls from that area and the drones would be best utilized there. So when I think about the unique, proposition for the drone, program, I I think of it multifold. Number one, when it comes to public safety, I think that it's really important that, the police department and the electeds know that there is value with this type of technology.

And chief Sullivan started very early on with the conversation about technology when I first came into office. And so we've had these conversations and they progressed.

And then when he shares data, it's back to that transparency. You shared the transparency portal. This is a very important piece because, Chief Sullivan and his team really wanna make sure that community understands the value of this technology.

And so it's you're bringing electeds along, you're bringing community along, while still staying on the topic of, this program. And so when you finally add the piece about data, and the number of calls and how this can help, with the response, and this pilot is gonna be in district three, you got instantaneous buy in from all of us in the council because we understood, the unique value proposition.

And so, I think when it comes to a city our size, four hundred thousand people, we continue to think, you know, we want to be a smart city, but using it, also responsibly.

And so this is a pilot program that has not, you know, been really tested in our area, and so we're excited. I'm definitely excited to see, the results of what will happen with this pilot program, and hopefully, we can expand.

Great. Thank you for that. As as the next question's gonna be, said they're asked of you, chief. We're gonna play a couple videos in the background that your office sent to us, but I'd like to really dive into a little bit more about de escalation, specifically how drone technology has supported Wichita Police Department in these efforts. Do you mind kind of speaking to that a little bit?

Yeah. Absolutely. I mean, we are a perf ICAT department.

Department is very well grounded in the principles of de escalation.

And picking the SCADIO drones and utilizing them in tactical situations is just a natural for us. We're taking what we already have, which is sound tactics, We're pairing it up with the right technology and then we're implementing those principles of de escalation of time, of talk, of distance.

And then putting them together but in order to resolve, potentially, volatile situations. And we we have this better eyes on the situation because of the drone. For instance, I've what you're seeing now is we were chasing a suspect from a violent domestic violence assault. And we believe that person, well that person actually was armed. And, you know, instead of sending officers into an unsafe situation, we knew for the most part we had a good perimeter and we had the suspect contained to a greater degree, but we didn't know exactly where he was. And the drone enabled us to find out find exactly and pinpoint where he was so that we could, construct our our perimeter and begin communicating with him and letting him know that, he he was caught. There was no way out, rather than us going in there and, risking a confrontation.

And then, you know, as I talked about our property crimes team, we were at a convention last week and in Oklahoma City where they got an award, and and we played one of our videos from our well done Wednesdays and was showing the different, different apprehensions that we made during pursuits and how that, you know, made things safer for officers that were inbound in their vehicles, in order to make the apprehension, do it safely, prevent auto accidents, prevent the the need for unnecessary force. So this has just been a game changer to our our entire program of de escalation and it just reinforces everything that we teach our officers and and and implore our officers to do. And then you have a fantastic record of yourself doing it which we'll explain more how we utilize that when we talk about well done Wednesday.

Yeah. Look at the smile on that officer's face. I don't know if everybody caught it at the end when his drone was, landing. So really good morale booster, as far as technology in your organization, I can imagine as well.

So thanks for that, chief. Alright, mayor. Back to you. How does the future of a drone as first responder program align with Wichita's overall public safety and smart city vision?

You kind of highlighted that at the beginning of of our discussion, but a little bit deeper dive if you don't mind.

Yeah. So I think that, it's important to kind of marry together public safety and also, the things that we wanna do with the city in terms of economic development. So, the city of Wichita has this long aviation history. I mentioned that, last year, I had the opportunity, to cochair with, the mayor of Orlando the NLC's Aviation Advisory Forum on Air Mobility and Drone Integration.

So I mentioned that because I think it's important to, mention that when you have a unique, city and, a unique history with aviation, it really marries well with drones.

There's major investment that's happening at Wichita State University, regarding both, aviation training, but also, unmanned aircraft research.

And so I mentioned that portion because public safety still comes into play. When you when we are a city that, focuses on, how do you utilize new technology, and we want to be innovative and we, fully, trust, especially when our chief has gathered all the data, has really analyzed it.

We as electeds, we just wanna be supportive.

And so, when I think of the future of the drone program, I see it not just, working well with police, but I also see it working well with fire. I also see it working well with public works, and I can also see it working with economic development. So I think there are a myriad of ways that you could utilize your program, to not just fit one department, but can be, multidisciplinary.

Kinda giving you a a little bit of background, I guess, of how this kinda unfolded.

As I mentioned as you mentioned during my intro, I got into office in January of last year. These conversations started to really come to fruition, and more I became more deeply invested in this, in in the spring of last year, then got into NLC.

And when we were at NLC, I had the opportunity to meet Ben with, Skyeo, and he was coming to Wichita to talk about how it can be not just a police department tool, but also a fire department tool. And I really appreciated that conversation in December.

Fast forward to, May is when we finally approved that pilot program, and now we're about to launch it. So I give you this background to just share that it does take some time, but the commitment is there, especially in a city where we want to see drone integration into more departments in the city of Wichita.

Great. And kind of follow-up there. What was the motivation you think? I mean, you know, you're obviously a a forward thinker. You're a thought leader in that space. But what was the any other motivations behind, obviously, the police department telling you we want this? The fire department said, yeah.

Let's do it.

Well, let's be honest. We all are, working with limited budgets, and we need to be more creative in utilizing technology to help, especially doing more with less people.

And, sometimes we forget that this is, a tool that, you can really sell to community and share to them, why it's of of great value. And so, I think my motivation was we did, start looking at a budget deficit, but we also had a fund called the Innovation Fund, and that is to think about things that are forward thinking technology.

And when there was an opportunity to utilize those funds, especially having gotten a lot more information from the police department, it was, an easy, yes, let's let's pursue this a little bit more.

And so I I think part of the motivation is that all cities, all municipalities are trying to, you know, do more with less, but also do more smartly, and that's what this technology is all about.

I love that. Do it smarter and do it, smartly. Alright, chief. Back to you. You kinda talked about this in the beginning when when we're looking at, developing the Wichita drone as first responder program and kind of just hitting the button of a reset. But, really, what was the first operational steps after you hit reset, and what it take what did it take for you all to implement the drone as first responder program to what it is, about to be today?

Yeah. I think I probably answered that question, but but just to go over it again, it was it was picking the right person and that's why we we picked captain Purcell.

He he had some background and and he had a passion for it and that's what I I most recognized that he had a passion to make this work. So when he came back and told me that you know I'm sorry chief but there's no fixing what we have we're gonna start from scratch and I think that was the best decision that we could have made. And then we had to decide what was gonna be the right product for us and that was other advice he gave me and it factored into our decision to go with Skydio because I was purchasing the time new body worn cameras through Axon, the Taser ten's through Axon, and we are going to the Axon RMS. So we wanted a product that would easily integrate into the other major technologies that I was bringing in into the department along with Axon Fleet. So, and and as I mentioned before that we wanted something that was US made. So we realized that we had found the right product.

We saw some demonstrations.

I love the collision avoidance because that was one of the problems from before.

There were there were some drones, but they were in boxes broken, because they didn't have collision avoidance. So we knew we had the right product and the right technology.

And then he went to work on policy development. That's so important because you you've got to have that policy in place. You've you've got to discuss that policy with the community. And in our case, we have the citizen review board so that there's confidence in the policy.

The dashboard was just absolutely essential because I've been to many community meetings where people try to kind of come at you a little bit about the use of drones And when you you come back with that and answer, that's how I can answer your question. That's how I can be accountable to the community how these drones are being used. You can go on there anytime and see for yourself. It pretty much ends the conversation at that point.

And then it was training. And as the mayor really explained in great detail, I found out I was in the perfect place for that, and WSU Tech, was just really thrilled to partner with us, to make that happen.

Because without them we wouldn't be where we are at this point and have twenty nine trained pilots. And then the other part was the public messaging and one of the things that I have done here is increase the the, the public information office. I brought in a new civilian director, with a lot of new ideas and the people the existing people had some great ideas. And one one thing that we talked about was, whether it's in local surveys of of our officers here here in Wichita or even national surveys, police officers are frustrated that they make they they do everything right and they're just doing their job and they do one little thing wrong and it's a major disaster and you know they get smeared all over the media.

So the one thing we said was it's that we need to tell our story here in Wichita and we need to tell it ourselves and talk about, the great work that's being done by our officers every single day and that's when they came up with the idea for Well Done Wednesday where we would pick a significant piece of work by members of our department, usually commissioned but often it could be our crime scene investigators or even administrative folks. We try to make sure that we we are inclusive in the department, between our commissioned and and our professional staff.

And it's become very popular and it's really increased our our interaction with the community. And it's also been a really important part of of our recruitment because we're meeting younger people where they are, on their phones, on social media, and we're giving them a a glimpse in into how technically advanced the department is becoming. And we get a lot of good feedback on our new recruits about that. It's one of the reasons that they chose to come to the Wichita Police Department, because, they wanted to come play with our Skydio drones and get paid for it.

We love talking about Skydio drones. So along the same lines, like, we're talking about partnerships. You brought up Wichita State University mayor a few times, and and, chief, you brought up Wichita State as well. You know, other companies other than Skydio, talk about some of those partnerships that you've had. You talked about your citizens review board. Anybody else that you'd like to highlight or give credit to in in helping develop your program, chief or mayor even?

Go ahead, mayor.

Well, I think that instead of, pointing out, specifics, I'm gonna say that collaboration is key right here. So it really starts with a strong leader, like chief Sullivan with a vision, and then it's him sharing with each of us elected, this vision, and then we have connections and community. Who else needs to be at the table? Thankfully, the Wichita Police Department and Wichita State University have had a partnership for a long time, so it's a natural progression.

But what I mean by collaboration, I think sometimes we forget that community is also a collaborator too.

And so what I've appreciated from chief Sullivan and his team is that they actively are out there listening. They are actually proactively, engaging with community and helping shape, this, program. And so they have buy in as well. And so I think that that's why when you asked about the challenge at the very beginning, I think you can mitigate a lot of the challenge when you are more, involved with community at the very beginning and have them be part of that process. And I think that, chief and his team have done that, and that's the reason why you can see two things that are really gonna go in full, grand opening mode, which is the, real time information center and, the drones as first responders program. So I I just would advise people that if they're thinking about doing something like this, collaboration with community is just as important.

Yeah. And if I could add, our drones as first responder, our our our pilot program, we utilized the roof of of one of our fire stations, and that was based on on data for not just calls for calls for service for the police department, but the fire department as well because our goal is to be able to utilize, those drones to respond to any major fires within that area.

As we begin our pilot program and our goal, of course, is to cover as much of the city as we can.

At Public Works, we also see how we're gonna be able to use the the drone with first responder program to serve other city departments, in in in looking at other critical infrastructure and taking a whole of government approach as far as partnerships go.

This our our real time information center will be officially opening in, hopefully, in the next couple of weeks. But we wanna talk about partnerships. One of the ways that we are able to keep the cost down is that we have a fantastic partnership with Wichita State University, and and we have secured a grant while working with the university to pay interns that will be staffing our real time information center, saving us so much in personnel cost and giving these young people who most of whom are interested in a career in law enforcement, some phase of law enforcement, a very, very unique opportunity to work in a real time information center of a large and and very busy police department, and and and they're being paid for it as well. So partnerships is is a huge factor in what's making this successful.

Appreciate you both on that one.

And and so if we were to look at as far as drones as infrastructure, mayor kinda going back to the collaboration between departments. Do you see anybody else in the city that's could possibly use these drones as infrastructure such as, like, obviously, public works, parks and recreation, but, you know, everybody loves their streets nice and clean and paved and not with cracks in them or potholes. Maybe something else you could talk about specifically there?

Well, having come from the background of media, I can tell you that we utilize drones for that b roll that we need for our community to to share that story. I think it's the same thing for the city of Wichita. You can utilize, it for actual, purposes for public safety. You can utilize it, as you mentioned, for public works. I also think that these drones have great capabilities of also sharing the story of your own community. And so I I think that they're they will be highly utilized and every department's probably gonna want, to see how it could also benefit them.

So I think part of that is, when you have someone that is willing to collaborate and engage with others like chief Sullivan, that's where you get more buy in from other departments. So I'm really looking forward to this program launching.

Great.

And, what advice would you give local government leaders and mayors or even other officials for that matter who are hesitant maybe about adopting adopting the drone technology? Any advice there?

Well, I think that it's so important to be present, number one.

You know, I'm not the expert in any of this and by no means want to be. I want to be a great supporter of our law enforcement and our, first responders.

And so first and foremost, being present, I would I would really advise getting to know your, chief of police, your chief of fire, and asking them, what they think about technology, specifically drones.

And for our department, with chief Sullivan's leadership, it was he was already doing that. He was already, engaging with community, so I just wanted to be present when when he had, for instance, a town hall.

And as an elected, be willing to learn, but learn to understand.

And so, again, not an expert in any of this, but, I feel like I can share, the value to the community from the various conversations, I've had or have, been sitting through from the, police department. And then lastly, I think it's sharing, sharing with others, what you have learned and asking again, how can you be supportive, and helpful? And so as electeds, I think that is our opportunity there. It is, we have the opportunity to engage with more individuals. And so build that relationship with your chiefs first and ask, does this make sense in our city? And in our city, it did.

And then getting the buy in, not just from the mayor, but also the council members.

And so chief went not just to share that story with me, he shared it with each of the six other council members. And I think that that's why you see anytime, technology is brought up, it's a unanimous vote. It's seven zero because, again, the chief has built that relationship in helping us all understand, and we ask questions. And if, any one of our, one of the council members' districts wants to delve a little bit deeper, chief Sullivan actually did that, for two and a half hours, just two weeks ago.

He had a town hall specifically just talking about law enforcement. And, one of the things that I I thought was interesting is just seeing people's people's reactions to the transparency portal. So wichita police dot com is the website. And when you look on the left hand side, there is a a tab regarding transparency.

And it's not just the drone transparency, but there are other layers of transparency in there. And I think that that is what I'm very appreciative of of, chief Sullivan is that he is wanting not just the engagement, but he wants to be very transparent and engage the community at the same time.

Great. And, last formal question is gonna be for you, chief. I think if I had a award for most reposts that I have on LinkedIn, they come from a Wichita police department, day, specifically called well done Wednesdays and your social media campaign from there. Let's talk about that really quickly.

How did that come about? And and, obviously, it's successful. You wanna talk about how it's been successful there for the community and not just for the United States. Let's talk about Well Done Wednesdays.

Yeah. Well, I mean, we I touched on a little bit before, but but, yes, when I when I arrived here, that that was some of the feedback back that we got from from our officers.

And but that was also feedback that was being received nationwide. Police officers were frustrated, people were quick to promote especially on social media whatever they could negative about police officers. I mean you see people out set literally setting people up setting officers up in the street to try to evoke some type of negative response and I as I said I enhanced my my PIO office in fact one of my civilian PIOs is a drone operator so he can make these wonderful well done Wednesday videos and utilize our drones to do that.

But the bottom line is my officers here were from the moment I got here, I was just incredibly impressed by how focused they were on de escalation, and I wanted to see what I could do to help them to better equip them, to help them continue down that line. And that included a lot of the training programs that I instituted including the ICAT training.

But technology was part of that as well. And drones was a big part of that. And that was feedback that we were getting from our officers that they lacked that technology. And as I said, we're the largest department in Kansas.

We shouldn't have to be calling to a small department surrounding us for, drone technology. So that's why we took this program on. But from a larger sense, we just basically wanted to create a vehicle by which we could let the community see the great work that our officers were doing on the street. How many times they were encountering persons that were armed with edged weapons, sometimes armed with firearms, and they were finding a way to resolve the situation peacefully or with only the use of of less lethal weapons. And, it just kinda took off. And what was really gratifying to me as a chief was the fact that we literally have to have this discussion every week and make very hard choices of what what what incident are we going to go with because I've got crime scene investigators that are lifting prints that are solving crimes that we felt were not solvable.

I've got officers in in every assignment out there on the street, talking, distraught people off of bridges or as you can see in the video, literally arms armed armed persons that are in a mental health crisis that are considering killing themselves. And we're able to use the drone to get eyes on them, to communicate with them, and to really implement the principles of de escalation and resolve things peacefully.

And and, you know, we just felt it's really important that our community sees this and sees what's really happening out there rather than just the, one off incidents that, are some are are sometimes the only thing they see, and they see so they see it in a negative light.

Alright. We are at forty five minutes even. So we're gonna transition now to some q and a. A lot of these actually, believe it or not, we've already answered particularly about as it relates to efforts and, making some some changes or your mind of reference for city council and and for you, mayor, and and when that switch was lit. But was there a sticking point for you, mayor, at some point where you were like, okay. We need to absolutely do this.

Aside from the big thing, let's do this. Was there something that that made you realize it?

Was there something about effort or finances that was supporting in your decision to accomplish this vision?

Well, it always helps when there's a a little bit of money at the end of the year that has not been spent. So as I mentioned, the innovation fund, still had a bit of money left. And in that situation, this would have been, around December time frame when we really found out, these dollars were available. And it just so happened that it was in the month of December that Ben and his team at Skydio came to Wichita to gather together the Wichita Police Department and the Wichita Fire Department to talk about, drones as first responders.

And so it just so happened that it was right around that time, that there was an opportunity.

So I think part of it is, as I mentioned, chief has been really sorry about the light.

Chief has been, very good at trying to help us understand, this type of technology from the, you know, the real time information center. He took us down, to, another community in Oklahoma to see how their Arctic is working and how ours will be working. And so, I I think part of it is you've built that relationship with, your chief, and you get to know what are his or her priorities.

And, for chief Sullivan, technology has been one of his priorities. And, knowing that, again, there was a little bit of money left at the end of the year, and it was innovation. I mean, drones, innovation, they go hand in hand, and so this just made a lot of sense.

Good. And so, you know, along those partnership questions, chief, this one really, is actually a really good question as it relates to the DFR program. You talked about, some of your, professional staff as well as your sworn staff being pilots. Is that is that a avenue that you're gonna continue to explore throughout the agency and the duration of this program, or are you tweaking it one way or another? Is it fifty fifty? Can you talk about that?

Oh, well, absolutely. I mean, we'll be we'll be adding additional software so that we can, utilize our drones for crime scenes, accident scenes so that, we'll have a variety. We we have community service officers here that handle the the majority of our auto accidents here. So we're gonna want to incorporate them into the training as well as our crime scene investigators.

And then as I told you, one of our, noncommissioned public information officers already is a pilot and utilizes our drones to, document the the great work that we do. So, and the as the real time information center, comes online, imminently, we are going to also be having trained drone pilots from WSU, student interns, that when we launch that if necessary they'll be able to take control of the drone and be licensed to do so. So, we're we're just immersing this this project throughout our department. And, you know, it's so much better that way because you want you want everybody in the department to feel that they have a partner, that, that they have some some ownership, and and that makes makes them just more invested to really work with you to make it a success.

Great. And with citywide drone program and the different departments you have with your other pilots as far as the fire department, but it is there I guess my question is, are other departments already starting to become part part one zero seven, licensed pilots at all? Or have you thought about inviting public works to that conversation yet? Are you going to?

Yes. Absolutely. We will. We're not we're just, you know, we're just not there yet. I mean, we're we're we're now at twenty nine, and and we're probably gonna go for a few more pilots within the department, but our fire department has has multiple, certified drone pilots.

So it's kinda like we're getting our house in order, and then we're gonna then we'll invite company.

So we're we're we're at that stage now. We're making sure that we have our program where it should be at at the level we want it operating, and complete that integration with the real time information center. We got a lot of a lot of balls in the air here.

Great. And that was from Tim Simmons. He's a team lead at Grand Palm cert.

The question about the professional staff and the sworn staff was Willie Flack. He's a lieutenant with special ops from City of Albany Police Department. So, appreciate those questions. Let's go with another one here.

With the citywide drone program, how about community emergency response teams? Does, city Wichita have any city emergency response teams or search teams? And and do you ever plan on involving some of those volunteer forces to become part of your drone program? Has that been an option? Is that about you?

We have a close relationship with our office of emergency management who organizes those teams.

They go out and do search and rescue and things of that nature. So we absolutely look forward to utilizing our drones to support them and integrate with them in the future. I mean the future landscape is really limitless at this point and I think that's a that's a great idea and that's the type of thinking that we're trying to do here to see how or how many different ways can can we incorporate these drones into a real public safety program, not just a police program.

So that's definitely in our future.

Great.

And how much is DFR about reducing call volume really? Is it is it about reducing call volume versus important tactical support critical incident? Is it is it fifty fifty right now? Do you plan on going one way or the other more or is it just how are you prioritizing each incident?

Right now it's definitely tactical response.

It's enhancing our call response.

As as our DFR program grows, then I think we will begin to to more transition into reducing call load, being able to resolve calls simply within our real time information center, by deploying our DFR drones and the pilot in in the real time information center being able to make the decision that a a response is no longer needed. So we're moving in that direction but right now we're focused more on tactical and and enhancing our existing responses.

Great. And that was council member Jordan Morales from the city of Boise. So we've got a number of different United States, questions coming in, which is fantastic.

This next one is talks about airport authorities.

Mayor Wu, you spoke about, the relationship there and how important, the acronym air is for the city of Wichita, but for the state of Kansas. Can you talk about your work or any work you guys are doing with the airport and how it relates to the the pilot DFR program proposal?

Well, as a matter of fact, the Wichita Airport Authority is actually undergoing a master plan right now, and really talking about more, the runways, less so this type of infrastructure, but it has been part of the conversations of what type of needs would the city of Wichita have.

As you know, we're the largest city in the state of Kansas, but folks can travel from, Wichita to other major cities close by, Oklahoma, Missouri being the other two, for airport, or air travel. And so really what we're focusing more on is just the infrastructure that we currently have in terms of runways, better enhancing those, current, needs. So So not so much on the drone integration just yet. It is a a topic, but just we don't see necessarily, air taxis as something that Wichitans or Kansans would be embracing right away.

However, we are a great place for manufacturing. So one of the things that we are focusing on is seeing where we could maybe possibly create a space where we could, build these, these types of, technologies. So we're always looking for those types of opportunities here, and I think it's more on the manufacturing side right now versus the, deploying air taxis and utilizing that technology.

Gotcha.

Now there's some questions about first person point of view and and, you know, a lot of drone pilots use goggles.

Chief, you've probably seen this, with some of the gamers out there in the world, but a lot of drone pilots seem to be using what's called FPV.

I guess, are you using drones to avoid pursuits and and using those first person view goggles? Does and that you've seen, have you seen anybody using those? That was a question from, David Leslie, who's an AEO at the Civil Air Patrol.

Yeah. We we we do not. But we were the first department in Kansas to be certified to fly beyond beyond line of sight.

Right now our focus with the drones in terms of pursuits is not so much using them, to track pursuits because they're limited in range but to avoid pursuits. And that's why I talked about our property crimes task force of utilizing the drones to get get our eyes on stolen cars and intercepting them before they have a chance to take off.

And that's expanding it. You know we can we'll look to expand that in the future but right now we're when it comes to pursuits we're more in the preventive mode using drones to prevent it from being in involved in a pursuit.

Got it. Let's talk about funding really quickly. A lot of questions about that. Has there, other than the general fund or other allocated funds, have you used asset forfeiture or grant funding or any other public private partnerships to develop your drill program, chief or mayor?

Oh, the well, our our drone program, right now as part of our larger contract with Axon. So that is coming out of the, the very gracious allotment of the mayor and and city council and that's why and the mayor spoke very eloquently about it. Like it's very important, one of the things that we knew was it was very important to meet with each member of council and to give them detailed presentations on this is what we want, but this is why we want it, this is how we what we intend to do about it, and this is how we intend to address what we know will be some concerns of the of the community.

And, you know, just one example of is making sure that in our policy that, you know, our DFO our drones will, you know, cameras will will remain looking forward until they get on station, and then and then the camera will look begin to look downward because that was a concern that we anticipated. And sure enough, we got a lot of inquiries about that, and people were very, relieved when we assure them that, number one, they could always find out, whether or not we were keeping our promise, with with with a court request.

But that, by policy, that our pilots would be instructed that they would, not drop the cradle until they got on on-site.

Got it.

I will add a couple of things to that. I think one of the one of the, important parts about this pilot program is there is a partnership even right there. The police department is having the dock, over or the hive at one of the fire stations. So you already are seeing at least that collaboration.

And, again, they're gonna be responding to, calls, not just police calls, but some of these, major fires. And so that there's already two departments right there that are gonna benefit. And so I see it less a police department, budget item and see it more as a city, budget item when it comes to public safety. Or if you integrate that, eventually with public works, it really is gonna become more of a citywide, drone program.

And that's where you can see, you know, where where it's not the burden of just the police department's budget. Again, in this pilot program, it is the innovation fund. There was a specific line item, but I see it less of just, really more a citywide type of budget item.

And our real information center is here in city hall where it's where it's police headquarters and fire headquarters as well as all of our other city departments.

This is where the the mayor's office is, a member's of council, the city manager, assistant city manager. And I wanted it that way so that in an emergency, any department that needed the use of our equipment, including our DFR, would be able to just simply go go to our real time information center, and and they would find a technician there to make whatever that that department head or city leader needed done. We would be able to make it happen. So we would have real collaboration regarding that, all the technology inside our real time information center, including drones and DFR.

It sounds like you need a well done Wednesday with Wu then and have her, fly one of the drones one day. But, that was from lieutenant Noli Barra from Milwaukee County sheriff's, and we have exactly one minute left. So I'm gonna end with this. This is mayor Chris Fimento from El Segundo.

The question is, do your drones answer and close calls independently? And this is, a number of different agencies do this differently. Some will automatically send a drone and a police officer, and then some other agencies for calls that aren't of, you know, priority zero one will send the drone just a drone to even respond to, you know, like a hang up nine one one or a payphone to see if there's any action going. Chief, can you speak to that at all?

Our drones will be dispatched from within the real our DFR drones will be dispatched from in the real time information center by a by a pilot and and technician who's monitoring radio, and any priority calls that come out within the designated DFR area, the drone will be the first mode of response. And and that is the whole point that we can begin to give information to, the responding officers while they're still en route, letting them know whether to upgrade or downgrade their response or to completely resume and we can resolve the call by by way of DFR.

So that's the future for us, and that's, thank god, finally, the very near future.

Great. If you don't mind, we have one more question that just came in. Are you guys, cool for one more minute? Sure.

Great. Alright. And and talking about Skydio and developing load capacities, chief or mayor, have you thought about the ability for our drones to, someday respond to provide, Narcan or provide, life flotation devices or things of that nature. And and our development, obviously, we we would imagine someday becoming the ability to increase that payload.

But, chief, have you thought about using our dropper at all or anything like that?

Absolutely. I mean, you know, down the line, I mean, we we we're kinda taking the the crawl, walk, run approach here.

And captain Purcell, the reason that he has this assignment is because he is a visionary, and he's very passionate about how drones can contribute more and more to public safety. So and and everything's wide open and to us, right now. We wanna get it right, and then we wanna just think imaginatively about, the different ways that we could utilize drones to increase public safety and better serve the the people at Wichita. So they're all great ideas, and and I hope hope to see them come to fruition here.

Great. And that was Tim Yaw. He's a fire lieutenant special operations for the Bellevue Fire Department at City of Bellevue.

So alright. It is officially a one hour and one minute. Mayor and chief, I really appreciate the time that you have offered us both in prep and here today. Anything closing remarks either one of you would like to make before we end it?

I'll just say thank you very much to Skydio, the Wichita Police Department team, and all of you who chose to be with us, this afternoon. This is an invitation. Come visit us in Wichita. The real time information center is about to kick off. The drones as first responders will be integrated. So, Wichita would welcome you. So come visit us at the air capital.

Thanks, mayor.

I think the mayor said it all right there. Thank everybody for their time, and thank you, Phil. Thank you, mayor.

Our pleasure. Thanks, chief. And if anybody has any questions for Skydio or for me, feel free to fend me befriend me on LinkedIn. Happy to answer any questions and look forward to talking to you all in the future.

You all have a wonderful, day and week ahead. Thank you again for your time and a pleasure to speaking with all of you today about citywide drone response in action, the city of Wichita, and the Wichita Police Department. Thanks, mayor. Thanks, chief.

Bye bye.