NOPD’s drone flight log through early August 2026 arrived in response to public records request 26-10297. This post covers flights from April 1 forward. NOPD’s record-keeping is markedly better than what it has produced before. The problem is what the improved records reveal. Most flights are still not tied to a police incident, and the majority of the fleet’s airtime is spent hovering over festivals, parades, and second lines.
Source material: the original PDF production, the data as CSV, and a Google Sheet for anyone who wants to check the math.
What improved
Every flight since April 1 lists an approving supervisor. The incident type is drawn from a fixed list rather than typed free-hand, and a details field is filled in on every record. Someone at NOPD fixed the form. That matters, and it should be said plainly.
The numbers, April 1 through August 8
- 158 flights: 76 in April, 9 in May, 24 in June, 39 in July, 10 in the first week of August.
- 108 flights (68%) categorized as “Special Event.” Scene reconstruction accounts for 14, rescue response 11, suspect search 9, training 7, tactical operations 2, “other” 3, and 4 have no incident type at all (all four are Crescent City Classic flights).
- 94 flights have something in the “Incident ID” field, but only 56 contain an actual NOPD item number (covering 21 unique incidents). The other 38 are free text such as “Essence Fest” or “Community Event.”
- Put differently, 102 of 158 flights (65%) are not tied to a police item number.
- 109 flights were event overwatch: Essence Festival (37), French Quarter Fest (33), Jazz Fest (12), Westbank Super Sunday (11), Crescent City Classic (9), Pigeon Town Steppers (6), Red Dress Run (1).
Why this still falls short
A police drone in the air should mean a police matter on the ground: a missing swimmer, a fatal crash to reconstruct, an armed suspect to locate. Those flights are in this log, and they are exactly what the technology is for. Every one of them should carry an item number. Unfortunately, legitimate incidents are only one-third of NOPD’s drone flights.
The other two-thirds of the flights are something else. “Special Event” is not an incident. “Overwatch” is not a call for service. It is a camera in the sky over a crowd of people who have committed no crime and called no one, and the record of that flight is a festival name rather than an incident number because there was no incident. NOPD flew 37 times over Essence Festival and 33 times over French Quarter Fest. There is no articulated reason in the log for any of them beyond the event itself.
Better forms have made the pattern legible. The next step is a policy that requires an item number for every flight and reserves the fleet for actual police work. Until then, this is better documented mass surveillance.
Tired of the surveillance? Sign the petition
