Minneapolis Rejects Skydio Drones While Whittier Expands Axon's DFR Program
The Minneapolis City Council rejected a police drone pilot on July 16, 2026, in a 6-6 tied vote, after public comment tied the vendor, Skydio, to drone sales to Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Israeli military. Four days earlier, the Whittier, California city council approved the opposite move: folding a Skydio-built Drone First Responder program into a five-year, $3.44 million agreement with Axon Enterprise, in a 4-1 vote. The two records describe the same underlying technology reaching opposite council outcomes within one week, for different stated reasons.
- Minneapolis pilot vote
- 6-6 tied, failed
- MPR News, 16 Jul 2026
- Whittier DFR vote
- 4-1 approved
- Whittier Informed, 20 Jul 2026
- Whittier 5-yr Axon total
- $3.44M
- City council packet
- Written comments filed
- 165 pages
- Minneapolis LIMS record
What the Minneapolis pilot proposed
The rejected proposal, filed in the city's legislative record, would have let the Minneapolis Police Department fly Skydio drones as first responders for a 75-day trial at no cost to the city, launching from two docks at Fire Station 14 in north Minneapolis. Under the plan, drones would respond to 911 calls and livestream video to dispatch so commanders could judge whether to send officers, and could also be used to search for missing people. Non-evidentiary footage would have been deleted within seven days, with a public dashboard tracking flight dates, locations, and stated reasons.
Minneapolis police already fly drones under existing authority; the pilot would have added the first-responder dispatch model, not created drone use where none existed. Dozens of residents attended the July 16 meeting and packed an overflow room. The public comment record submitted to the council ran to 165 pages, with MPR News reporting the majority opposed the pilot on privacy and safety grounds, and cited ICE and Israeli military use of Skydio drones specifically.
The 6-6 vote and the stated reasons on each side
Council member LaTrisha Vetaw, who sponsored the pilot, argued a 75-day trial was the appropriate way to test whether faster video on scene could help locate missing people or de-escalate calls. Mayor Jacob Frey attended to back the plan and argued rejecting it would not send a message to any foreign government while making it harder to keep residents safe. Council member Jamal Osman said he had supported the pilot until he learned Skydio drones had been used by ICE, which MPR News separately reported flew drones over Minnesota the preceding winter, and by the Israeli military; he said he supported drone technology only from a vendor without contracts with militaries he said were killing people. The proposal failed on the 6-6 tie. Minneapolis Community Safety Commissioner Todd Barnette said afterward the city had missed a chance to evaluate the technology with real data rather than assumptions. Skydio did not respond to a request for comment from MPR News.
What Whittier approved, and what it actually cost
| Line item | Detail | Source of detail |
|---|---|---|
| Drone First Responder | 3 Skydio X10 systems, docks, 5-year software, unlimited evidence storage, training | Axon equipment quote in council packet |
| DFR 5-year cost | About $1.05M; ~$193K year one rising to ~$226K year five | Staff report to council |
| Total order after consolidation | $3,443,427.89 across 5 years | Staff report; two prior Axon equipment orders folded in |
| Body cameras and evidence storage | Covers 150 officers; largest existing budget line | Axon quote attachment |
| Draft One and transcription | AI-assisted report drafting from body-camera audio | Axon quote attachment |
| Interview-room recording | Equipment for roughly six rooms under Axon Interview | Axon quote attachment; not described in the staff report summary |
Whittier Informed, an independent local outlet, reported the council approved the DFR program in a 4-1 vote on July 14, 2026, with Council Member Aida Macedo casting the sole no vote over privacy concerns and the program's integration with Peregrine, a separate data-software contract the council rejected later the same meeting. The outlet reported that Whittier folded the drone purchase into a restructured five-year Axon agreement rather than a standalone order, and that the staff report presented to the council detailed only the drone cost, not the total contract value or the fact that two existing Axon equipment orders were being closed and replaced. Macedo said during the meeting she could not locate the actual Axon master agreement in the packet; the city attorney's office said it had reviewed that agreement separately and pointed her to a hyperlink inside the packet. The reporting states no competitive bid process preceded the expanded agreement, though competitors including Motorola Solutions, in partnership with Brinc, market comparable drone-first-responder systems.
How Whittier says the drones will be used
Whittier Police Chief Aviv Bar told the council the department operates 13 drones and typically flies one at a time, dispatched only through a watch commander rather than by individual officers. Bar cited examples including a case in a neighboring city where a drone identified a toy gun from roughly 200 feet up before officers arrived, and described using heat-sensing cameras for nighttime searches. He said cameras record only when a drone is examining a suspected crime, footage uploads to Evidence.com alongside body-camera video, and is shared with the LA County District Attorney's Office when needed for a case. Bar said the department does not provide drone or other Axon data to federal immigration agents on its own, citing California's SB 54 limits on local cooperation with civil immigration enforcement, and that a public dashboard will show the date, time, location, and stated reason for each flight once DFR launches, a disclosure the outlet reported the department's existing drone program does not currently provide.
Reading the two records together
- Both councils reviewed the same manufacturer and a similar first-responder dispatch model within days of each other and reached opposite votes.
- Minneapolis' rejection turned on the vendor's buyer list, ICE and the Israeli military, not on a technical failure of the pilot design.
- Whittier's approval turned on cost bundling into an existing five-year Axon relationship, and its lone no vote turned on a different integration, Peregrine, alongside privacy concerns.
- Neither record resolves what other Minnesota or California cities using Skydio or Axon DFR programs, including St. Paul, have found in their own audit or outcome data; those remain separate public-record questions per department.
- For the wider Axon product chain, including Draft One and Fusus, see Axon Police AI: Body Cameras, Draft One, and Fusus.
Status
Minneapolis' Skydio pilot failed on its July 16, 2026 council vote and is not in force. Whittier's DFR program and expanded Axon agreement passed its July 14, 2026 council vote; Whittier Informed did not report a public rollout date for live drone flights as of its story. Current as of 7 August 2026.
Sources
- Minneapolis City Council rejects police drone contract with Skydio, MPR News
- Drones as First Responders pilot program presentation, Minneapolis city legislative record
- Public comment record on the Skydio contract, Minneapolis city legislative record
- Minnesota drone sightings drove surveillance fears as ICE surged, MPR News
- Council approves police drone program as part of larger $3.4 million Axon deal, Whittier Informed
Frequently Asked Questions
Did Minneapolis ban police drones?
No. The Minneapolis City Council rejected a specific pilot program that would have let the police department contract with Skydio to fly drones as first responders to 911 calls. Minneapolis police already use drones in some circumstances outside that pilot. The vote on the pilot proposal was 6-6 and failed on the tie.
Why did council members cite Skydio specifically?
Public comment and council members raised that Skydio drones have been sold to Immigration and Customs Enforcement and to the Israeli military. Council member Jamal Osman said he had supported the pilot until he learned of those sales and cited a prior winter in which ICE used drones to surveil Minnesotans.
What is Axon Drone First Responder?
Axon markets Drone First Responder, or DFR, as a program where a remote pilot launches a drone from a fixed dock immediately after a 911 call, before a patrol officer leaves the station, aiming to get live video to a scene in under 90 seconds. Whittier, California approved a DFR contract using Skydio drones on July 14, 2026, folded into a larger five-year, $3.44 million Axon agreement.