Minneapolis residents pack city council committee hearing to say no to Skydio drone proposal

Minneapolis, MN – On July 8, Minneapolis City Council’s Public Health, Safety and Equity Committee held a public hearing on a proposal for a trial program for “drones as first responders” (DFRs). The drones are manufactured by Skydio, a California-based tech company that makes autonomous surveillance drones.

The Free Palestine Coalition (FPC) called for its supporters to pack the meeting, achieving this with both the meeting room and the overflow room at capacity. Over 40 people testified, all expressing opposition to the drone proposal.

One of the main concerns residents raised is that Skydio is a major producer of drones for the Israeli military. Sarah Martin, a member of Women Against Military Madness (WAMM), testified on this point, saying, “300 to 500 Palestinians were killed every day and there’s no question Skidio drones account for many of those deaths. You must decide to reject the contract with Skydio and continue to do the right thing, as you did when you passed one of the strongest if not the strongest, ceasefire resolutions in the country in 2024. Or when you voted not to use ZenCity, an Israeli surveillance company. We don’t want our tax dollars going to companies profiting from the genocide, and a company whose drones have been use to surveil protesters, including those opposing this vicious and evil genocide.”

The other main concern residents raised is that drones operated by the Minneapolis Police Department (MPD) would be used to violate the civil liberties of oppressed nationality communities, and to surveil protesters.

Mary Ford, member of the Minnesota Anti-War Committee (AWC), testified, “I remember in late May, early June, 2020 during George Floyd [protests], the Blackhawk helicopter swooping low and loud over my house, breaking tree branches and scaring the neighbors that had banded together. The Minnesota State Patrol also flew a Cirrus spy plane over our city at this time. U.S. Customs & Border Patrol collected our data using a Predator drone during George Floyd. To track and pursue targets, both ICE and CBP have purchased Skydio drones. This is not the company that Minneapolis wants to keep. We want to demilitarize police work, not militarize police work to further ridiculous levels.”

Maddy Schwartz, also of the AWC, expressed similar sentiments in her testimony, saying, “This could 100 percent be used as a tool to expand state-sanction violence, surveil protests and dissent, Black and brown communities, and bring in huge amounts of visual data. I worry that this will be the next course of violence against unhoused people who, as a city, we’ve already decided don’t deserve privacy, dignity, or any space to exist. I wonder how this could affect community rapid response systems as we rely on community members to respond to ICE. I’d like to know how many of your immigrant constituents still living in fear, would feel safer with this expanded surveillance through this third party. When we make these investments in law enforcement, it gets harder to trust that council cares about privacy rights and over-policing of communities of color.”

The proposal is for the MPD to launch the Skydio pilot program in Ward 4 in the city’s Northside, which is a Black-majority neighborhood. Many residents came from the ward to address their councilmember, LaTrisha Vetaw, who authored the proposal and sits on the Public Health, Safety & Equity Committee.

At the end of the hearing the committee voted to “forward without recommendation” and the full Minneapolis City Council is expected to discuss it at their 9:30 a.m. meeting on Thursday, July 16.

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