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Police question

mobilehomer

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In the U.S., can law enforcement take control of a drone? Can they land it, fly it to their location or any thing else other than use Aeroscope? Can they jam the signal? I have a friend who is concerned that they can. Thanks
 
Remotely they can't do anything. The things they can see with aeroscope is to see the telemetry of the drone are basically everything the pilot can see except the video feed.
 
Can they yes, but are they going to do it most likely No.

As long as you are cooperating with them , they will simply ask you to bring back the drone and land, and most likely hang around until you are gone. The real drone police are on the Forum keeping everyone in check as to what is current.

The Police only tend to get involved when there is a Complaint.
Thus flying with commons sense is # 1 regardless of the FAA laws.


# Are you putting anyone in Danger, People , Pets and Animals and Birds - Likely to get complaints.


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In the U.S., can law enforcement take control of a drone?
If we're talking your basic everyday hometown police or sheriff's department - No.

Can they land it, fly it to their location
No.

. . .or any thing else other than use Aeroscope?
No.

Can they jam the signal? I have a friend who is concerned that they can. Thanks
No, they can't jam the signal. They have neither the training or the means to do any of this.

Tell your friend as long as he's not flying over critical infrastructure or in places where he clearly shouldn't be, that the biggest threat to loose a drone is the pilot.
 
If we're talking your basic everyday hometown police or sheriff's department - No.
With all due respect, you are wrong. Can a officer take control of a car, motorcycle, anything in someone’s hands when he is conducting an investigation? Of course he can.
That said should something happen to the property he is in control of then he or his department can be held responsible. For that reason I believe, depending on the nature of the investigation most would ask you to land first and then go forward with questioning.
 
With all due respect, you are wrong.
No I am not.

If you read the OP's post, the context of the questions are in regards to the ability of DJI's AeroScope. He essentially asks what capabilities this device affords a department. Read it again:

In the U.S., can law enforcement take control of a drone? Can they land it, fly it to their location or any thing else other than use Aeroscope? Can they jam the signal? I have a friend who is concerned that they can. Thanks


When the OP asks "Can they land it, fly it to their location" the answer is No. Police and law enforcement have no device that can send a signal to control your aircraft. They have no device to Jam your aircraft. Furthermore, no police department trains officers how to take the physical controller from a person mid flight, and fly anywhere.

With all due respect, you're confusing confiscation with what the OP is actually asking. He's asking whether or not during a flight; can LEO's basically control his drone with some unknown device or machine and the answer is - No.
 
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Yes, there are what's called 'spoofing' anti drone tech, but as @Ty Pilot says, your average PD will not have this sort of tech.
Feds, probably, even then there would be small units in high response type depts that are trained to operate them.
Most of this is probably more location based, military, guarded critical infrastructure.


Also later in the vides at 4:54 shows jammers than can bring a drone down to land.
 
I am reading the question the same way FLDAVE read it. The first sentence says “In the U.S., can law enforcement take control of a drone?“ Yes he can, he can walk up and take the controller out of his hand, fly it where ever he wants. The officer is in control of it. And no I’m not confusing confiscation with control. If the person is arrested then the drone or whatever may be confiscated.
I agree with you on everything else.
 
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With all due respect, you are wrong. Can a officer take control of a car, motorcycle, anything in someone’s hands when he is conducting an investigation? Of course he can.
That said should something happen to the property he is in control of then he or his department can be held responsible. For that reason I believe, depending on the nature of the investigation most would ask you to land first and then go forward with questioning.
Your absolutely wrong, Police can not take control of your drone , they cant land it or make it come to them . Were do you get this misinformed info??
 
Your absolutely wrong, Police can not take control of your drone , they cant land it or make it come to them . Were do you get this misinformed info??
You didn’t read, or understand what I was saying and thats ok, I’m not going through it again.
 
If I misunderstood what the original poster was trying to ask then I apologize, I wasn’t the only one. But I don’t apologize for my answer to the question.
 
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If I misunderstood what the original poster was trying to ask then I apologize, I wasn’t the only one. But I don’t apologize for my answer to the question.

I can see why you thought what you did looking at the very first question from the OP.
(Personally, I thought @FLDave post #2 was written tongue in cheek, but maybe he also read it as physically take over.)

And yes, in the right circumstances a LEO that was confident could overpower a drone pilot, seize the controller, and "take control of a drone" in that way.

A step up from that, a LEO could shoot you if they had enough evidence / suspicion you were going to use the aircraft for some sort of seriously nefarious act . . . ie crash an explosive laden drone into a crowd of people etc.

If the OP confirms the intentions of the questions, we can put it to bed finally.
 
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As the OP didn't really frame the question or explain the intent only the OP can come back write the question in a way it could not be misinterpreted.
And my response was not tongue in cheek; it was simply a response to the OP's first question which should should not have required an answer as I would hope the OP already knew the answers, or should have known.
 
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I can see why you thought what you did looking at the very first question from the OP.
(Personally, I thought @FLDave post #2 was written tongue in cheek, but maybe he also read it as physically take over.)

And yes, in the right circumstances a LEO that was confident could overpower a drone pilot, seize the controller, and "take control of a drone" in that way.

A step up from that, a LEO could shoot you if they had enough evidence / suspicion you were going to use the aircraft for some sort of seriously nefarious act . . . ie crash an explosive laden drone into a crowd of people etc.

If the OP confirms the intentions of the questions, we can put it to bed finally.
For me, I have already put this to bed. Though I don’t post much between this site and Phantom Pilots I have been around a long time and seen a lot of questions about what a law enforcement officer can and can’t do and I thought this was another one.
After reading the OP a number of times I agree he was probably wanting to know if a officer can somehow hijack someones drone and fly off with it. That said he wasn’t very clear on what he was asking.
I sure didn’t want to cause so much controversy.
 
Well, it's solved in both ways I guess :)
No harm done, that's for sure.
I would think that even if LE had access to the technology to take control of the drone, the time it would take to deploy it and the qualified personnel to intervene would far exceed the time your drone could remain airborne. In other words, you would be on the ground by the time they got set up.
 
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Thanks guys, let me clarify. Can law enforcement remotely take over your drone? I know tha Aeroscope can only receive signals, NOT control remotely. My friend insists that he knows of a situation where LEOs remotely took over a drone and crashed it into a building. I explained that it is not legal and there is no authority allowed to do this. I also explained that most fly-aways are pilot fault(mostly no home point update before take-off) and only occasionally equipment malfunction. I am just looking for reinforcement and to dispel a few horror rumors. Thanks
 
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