Drones
Private Drone Use
In order to protect public health and safety, City Council adopted an ordinance in 2018 to regulate the use of small unmanned aircraft where not otherwise regulated by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). Read the ordinance.
Police Department Drone Use
Drone Program
GVPD drones are used to assist police officers and enhance public safety in accordance with FAA regulations, department policy and industry best practices.
Drone as First Responder Program
As part of the 2026 Annual Operating and Capital Improvement Budget, Greenwood Village City Council authorized the Greenwood Village Police Department to implement a Drone as a First Responder (DFR) program to support and enhance the police department’s capabilities when responding to priority calls for service.
GVPD has partnered with BRINC, a Seattle-based company specializing in U.S.-manufactured drones for public safety applications, to lease one DFR drone for up to five years.
While GVPD has used drones for many years, DFR drones are deployed by officers remotely and canarrive within minutes—often much faster than an officer. This allows GVPD to see what is happening at the scene before their officers arrive. This tool helps identify risks and confirm details, helping keep our community members and officers safe in potentially high-risk situations.
DFR programs are used by public safety professionals nationwide as emergency response tools that can provide police departments with early information to make safer, more informed decisions during critical events. These can include missing persons, traffic crashes, in-progress crimes, and similar situations that require real-time awareness.
GVPD will establish one docking station for the drone and it will only be dispatched on specific call types. Some benefits of DFR include:
- Reducing response times: A case study in Chula Vista, California, demonstrated that when dispatched, drones arrived on scene in an average of 92 seconds, often ahead of responding officers.
- Increasing efficiency: In the above case study, police officers responding on the ground were able to be cleared about a quarter of the time, prior to the officer arriving on-scene, allowing them to focus on other activities.
- Improving officer and community safety, by providing vital information to responding officers prior to their arrival.
The DFR drone will be an addition to the department’s existing drone program. GVPD drones are used to assist police officers and enhance public safety in accordance with FAA regulations, department policy and industry best practices.