Tools and technology: ‘Drone as a First Responder' piloted in Lenexa
The 'Drone as a First Responder' program was introduced to Lenexa in March. It's being added to the department's already existing drone fleet.
'Right now, we believe we are the first in the Kansas City Metro to establish a 'Drone as a First Responder Program,'' Officer Danny Chavez said.
Lenexa resident finds bobcat kitten sheltering inside home during recent storm
It supplies eyes on the scene before officers arrive. The collaboration is with the Lenexa Fire Department, and it's used within 'any call' where responders think a difference could be made.
Drones, though, aren't new to Lenexa, but having one be deployed remotely is.
'We can get a drone over the scene minutes before an officer arrives and feed real-time information to our dispatchers and our officers,' Officer Danny Chavez with Lenexa PD shared.
So far, success has been seen; it's shortened response times.
'We've seen two minutes shaved off our response time,' Chavez said in reference to emergency response calls.
There has also been a reduction in response times, on average, by four minutes with non-emergency calls, too.
From March to May, this specific drone has been used nearly 130 times.
'That was from everything from a suspicious person wandering in the area, that we wanted to check out before officers got on scene, to car crashes and disturbances and active thefts, etc.'
Man charged in connection with death of Platte County sports reporter shot on I-29
You can see, highlighted in yellow, when this DFR (Drone as a First Responder) drone was deployed during recent emergency calls.
There will be an amendment to the 2025-2029 Capital Improvement Program to include the Drone as a First Responder Program and an agreement with Paladin Drones, Inc.
'The Drone as a First Responder Drone, we've just been piloting one over the last couple of months, and we were just approved by the governing body here in Lenexa to purchase six more.'
There will be seven total of this kind operating in Lenexa.
You can read the June 3 Lenexa City Council agenda here.
'The 2025-2029 Capital Improvement Program needs to be amended to add funds for the first year of the full implementation of the Drone as First Responder (DFR) Program, which is $300,535. Annual maintenance costs for years two through five are $173,700 and will be paid from the Police Department's operating budget. The total five-year cost is $995,335,' a Lenexa City Council document reads.
Over the next few months, the additional six drones will be stationed throughout the city, having a home base, and making sure the community is covered.
Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
New York Post
04-08-2025
- New York Post
Boyfriend speaks out after Sha'carri Richardson's domestic violence arrest at airport
American sprinter Christian Coleman defended his girlfriend Sha'Carri Richardson after the Olympic track and field star was arrested for domestic violence at the Seattle–Tacoma International Airport last month. During an interview Citius Mag at the 2025 USATF Outdoor Championships, Coleman explained that he didn't think Richardson should've been arrested and that he hates negative narratives surrounding them. 'For me personally, I feel like it was a sucky situation all round,' said Coleman, who competed in the 100 and 200 meters and failed to qualify for next month's world championships. 'I don't feel like she should have been arrested. I mean people have discussions and emotions and stuff like that. She has things that she needs to work on for herself, of course. So do I, so do you, so does everybody. 'But I'm the type of guy who's in the business of extending grace, and mercy and love. I hate the narrative too… its so negative. In the state of Seattle, even talking to the cop to whatever, he was like, 'There is really nothing I can do.'' TSA notified police about a disturbance between Richardson and Coleman, according to the AP. An officer that reviewed camera footage observed that Richardson grabbed Coleman's backpack and yanked it and that Coleman was shoved into a wall. The officer said Coleman kept trying to walk around Richardson and out of the way, but she kept getting in front of him. 4 Sha'Carri Richardson competes in Heat 1 of the first round of the Toyota Women's 200m during the 2025 USATF Outdoor Championships at Hayward Field on August 3, 2025 in Eugene, Oregon. Getty Images Richardson also appeared to throw an item at Coleman, which the TSA indicated may have been headphones. 'I understood… but she's a great human being and a great person,' Coleman said. 'We've been able to be a really good teammates all year. And I hate that narrative too because us coming together, we're just two dominant personalities. And she is, to me, the greatest female athlete in the world. I see it everyday. '… She just has a lot of things going on, a lot of emotions and forces going on inside of her that not only I can't understand, but nobody can because she's one of one. And I'm one of one too… She's going to be just fine. I'm going to be good too. So, it is what it is.' 4 Christian Coleman spoke out after his girlfriend, Sha'Carri Richardson was arrested for alleged domestic violence at the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport on July 27, 2025. X Richardson, 25, was arrested on fourth-degree domestic violence assault and booked into the South Correctional Entity (SCORE) in Des Moines, Wash. on July 27. She was released from custody at the SCORE South Correctional Facility after 19 hours, according to records viewed by The Post. Coleman, who is a three-time world championship gold medalist, did not press charges and 'declined to be a victim,' the police report viewed by The Athletic stated. 4 Christian Coleman looks on after the Xfinity Men's 200m final during the 2025 USATF Outdoor Championships at Hayward Field on August 3, 2025 in Eugene, Oregon Getty Images 'USATF is aware of the reports and is not commenting on this matter,' USA Track and Field said in a statement. Richardson declined comment to reporters at the U.S. championships, according to USA Today. The couple has been dating for more than two years. 4 Sha'Carri Richardson celebrates with Christian Coleman, Noah Lyles and Fred Kerley after winning the Women's 4x100m Relay Final during the World Athletics Championships Budapest 2023 at National Athletics Centre on August 26, 2023 in Budapest, Hungary. Getty Images for World Athletics Richardson narrowly missed qualifying for the 200-meter final Sunday at the U.S. track and field championships in Eugene, Ore. She has an automatic bye to the world championships in September in Tokyo as the defending champion. In January 2023 Instagram post, Richardson said she was removed from an American Airlines plane after she had an argument with a male flight attendant. A positive marijuana test at the 2021 U.S. Olympic trials kept Richardson out of the Tokyo Games. She then took gold at the 2024 Paris Games as part of the 4×100-meter relay team and silver in the individual 100-meter.
New York Post
03-08-2025
- New York Post
Manhunt launched for fugitive migrant who tried to ram ICE officers with car
A pair of illegal migrants tried to ram federal immigration agents during a bust in Denver before fleeing the feds – with one, a child sex abuse convict, still on the loose. Mexican national Jose Mendez-Chavez, a pedophile who entered the US illegally at least a half-dozen times, was behind the wheel Thursday when he tried to slam into Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents near Colorado Springs, KMGH-TV News reported. 'Mendez was not an 'innocent victim,'' an ICE spokesperson told the outlet. 'He is an abuser who plays the system and is now wanted for assault on a federal officer.' Advertisement 3 ICE says they now have Francisco Zapata-Pacheco in custody. ICE Denver 3 Teams of federal agents were staging an operation to capture two fugitives who tried to ram ICE agents and then fled by vehicle. AP The feds were conducting a raid at a construction site in Black Forest when they were attacked. The agents fired three shots as the migrants sped away, but authorities nabbed the passenger in the vehicle, identified as Francisco Zapata-Pacheco, a few hours later. Advertisement He is being held for deportation proceedings, KMGH said. 3 Jose Mendez-Chavez is still on the run. ICE Denver Meanwhile, ICE slammed the Colorado Rapid Response Network, a group that has been tipping off migrants about pending federal raids in the area, as 'despicable.' 'Two criminal aliens attempted to ram their vehicle into ICE officers during a targeted enforcement operation in Colorado Springs,' a department spokesperson said. Advertisement 'ICE officers are facing an 830% increase in assaults,' they said. 'Lies and violent rhetoric incite hostility against the brave men and women of ICE who put their lives on the line every day to protect American communities, as we witnessed in Colorado [on Thursday].'
Chicago Tribune
03-08-2025
- Chicago Tribune
‘Dehumanizing': Inside the Broadview ICE facility where immigrants sleep on cold concrete
The sounds of weeping mothers curled on cold concrete floors echoed through the walls at the federal immigration processing center in Broadview, keeping Gladis Chavez awake for most of the night. The cries came in waves, she recalled. Quiet whimpers, choked gasps and occasional prayers. About children left behind and fears of what would happen next. Most of the women who had been detained at a routine check-in June 4 at a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement office in Chicago now had nothing but each other and a few jackets they shared to fight off the nightly chill that seeped into their bones in a nondescript brick building just off the Eisenhower Expressway. By day three, Chavez said, her body ached with exhaustion. On day four, she and some of the other women were finally transferred out. The west suburban processing center is designed to hold people for no more than 12 hours before transferring them to a formal immigration detention facility. It has no beds, let alone any covers, Chavez said. They were not offered showers or hot food. No toothbrushes or feminine products. And certainly, Chavez recalled, those detained had no answers from immigration authorities about what would happen next. An investigation by the Chicago Tribune found that immigration detainees such as Chavez have been held for days at the processing center, a two-story building that is designed as a temporary way station until detainees can be transferred to jails out of state. For busier periods in June, data shows the typical detainee was held two or three days — far longer than the five or so hours typical in years past. The findings, which come from a Tribune analysis of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement data obtained and shared by the research group Deportation Data Project, show that the federal agency has routinely violated ICE's internal guidelines, which say the facility shouldn't hold people for more than 12 hours. Chavez became one of hundreds of people held in the facility for longer than 12 hours under the latest crackdown. Data showed that at least three people spent six or more days there. 'There were nearly 30 other women there in a single big room. Most were mothers who couldn't stop crying. The group of men were in a separate room,' Chavez said in Spanish, speaking to the Tribune in a Zoom interview from Honduras. In the group, she said, she met women who were nursing, pregnant women and elderly women. 'I never want any of my children, or any other person to go through this. It's dehumanizing, they treat us worse than criminals,' Chavez said. ICE, for its part, declined to respond to questions about the Tribune's findings and has not released its own data calculating how often it has held people in Broadview. But on the agency's website, it says it employs 'a robust, multilevel oversight and compliance program' to ensure each facility follows a 'strict set of detention standards.' A spokesperson for ICE reportedly told ABC 7 that: 'Any accusations that detainees are treated inhumanely in any way are categorically false. … There are occasions where detainees might need to stay at the Broadview office longer than the anticipated administrative processing time. While these instances are a rarity, detainees in such situations are given ample food, regular access to phones, showers and legal representation as well as medical care when needed.' Few can get inside to see what's going on, frustrating immigrant rights advocates and their allies in Congress. In mid-June, as the facility was cycling through detainees such as Chavez, four Democratic members of Congress were denied entry into the Broadview facility during an unannounced visit. On Wednesday, a dozen Democratic members of Congress who have been blocked from making oversight visits at immigration detention centers filed a federal lawsuit against President Donald Trump's administration that seeks to ensure they are granted entry into the facilities, including Broadview, even without prior notice. In Illinois, immigrant rights advocates are urging Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul to investigate the Broadview facility's ownership structure and contractual agreements with federal immigration authorities. They're also calling for a full site inspection and for the state to use all available legal tools to shut the facility down. State and local officials, however, say there's little they can do to force the U.S. government to change how it operates a federal facility. The longer detention times in Broadview have come as the Trump administration has pushed a massive boost in arrests while scrambling to build out the infrastructure to handle them, creating logistical logjams that can be particularly felt in Illinois, which has forbid local jails from holding ICE detainees. That means anyone arrested in the Chicago area must be sent out of state, once they're processed by ICE. So, for now, that can mean a small processing facility in the western suburbs — one that rarely held anyone overnight during the final years of President Joe Biden's administration — can end up warehousing dozens of detainees as they await ICE to move them. State Sen. Omar Aquino, a Chicago Democrat, was the primary sponsor of the Illinois Way Forward Act, which also limited local jails from contracting with ICE. He did not respond to questions regarding the unintentional hardships detainees are now facing because of the law. Instead, he said he 'stand(s) by the progress we have made in solidifying Illinois as a welcoming state, where immigrant families can live without fear and raise their children in a safe and supportive environment.' Chavez, who had been an immigration advocate in Chicago for nearly a decade, was deported on July 13 back to her native Honduras after spending more than a month in different ICE facilities in Illinois and Kentucky. She said she still feels traumatized by a system that separated her from her children and grandchildren while causing emotional and physical pain. Her ankles are still swollen from being shackled as she moved from one facility to another flown back to Honduras. 'I'm trying to heal both emotionally and physically,' she said. In 2023, the Department of Homeland Security, the parent agency of ICE, described the Broadview facility as a '12-hour hold facility with the typical stay of approximately five hours,' with a DHS auditor noting that 'absent exceptional circumstances, no detainee should be housed in a holding facility for longer than 12 hours.' When the members of Congress attempted to visit the site in June, Rep. Delia Ramirez noted, in a speech on the House floor, that ICE had posted a sign saying that the agency only 'processes' arrestees there and 'does not house aliens at these locations.' Yet, ICE's own data would suggest otherwise. The Tribune examined an ICE dataset, provided through the Deportation Data Project, that recorded dates and times of everyone detained at an ICE facility across the country, from September 2023 through June 26. The data had limitations. ICE recorded a time, down to the minute, when each person was checked in and out, but the Tribune found that the logs sometimes recorded people leaving Broadview only a minute or two before entering another facility hundreds of miles away, suggesting ICE may not have properly logged when someone left. To adjust for that, the Tribune computed earlier times people may have left Broadview, based on reasonable travel times from Broadview to the next ICE facilities — calculated through online mapping software and more plausible entries by ICE for others sent the same places. Even adjusting down the length of potential stays in Broadview, the analysis found a clear jump in how long detainees were held there, particularly earlier this summer. The median time logged for someone — meaning that half had shorter stays and half had longer — jumped beyond 12 hours for people booked into Broadview by mid-June. The median time continued rising as the month continued, eclipsing 24 hours for the typical detainee before they left Broadview, and then two days and sometimes three days. Even when the figures were averaged out over seven days — to smooth out any abnormally busy or slow days — the median stay in Broadview approached 48 hours for detainees, or four times as long as the 12-hour ICE guideline. While the ICE data doesn't name those detained, Chavez's biographical data and description of her journey through ICE facilities matched what was logged for one person. The log describes a Honduran woman as a widow, born the same year as her, with no criminal record but a deportation order issued in January, who was booked into the Broadview facility the morning of June 4 and not transferred out until more than three days later. The Tribune analysis found that ICE booked more arrestees on June 4 — 88 — than any on other day covered by the data. They joined another 23 who had been shipped that day to Broadview from facilities in Wisconsin and Indiana that house ICE detainees, as ICE shuffled detainees across the country. That made it the busiest day for bookings in Broadview through late June, as ICE ramped up enforcement in the Chicago area, and fueled the long stays in a place where advocates and family members of the detained say people have been held without basic necessities or medical care. In the federal government's 2023 audit of the facility, it confirmed the facility has six holding cells — two large ones, two smaller ones and two single-occupancy — with the four largest cells each having a toilet for detainees to share, as well as 'a place to sit while awaiting processing.' The audit said the facility lacked a medical unit, medical staff, food facilities or food staff. 'While the two large holding rooms are equipped with a single shower; these showers are inoperable, and the space is currently used for storage,' the 2023 audit noted. Marina Lopez Perez also was detained on June 4 after she showed up to a check-in with ICE in its South Loop facility. The Guatemala native spent three days in Broadview before she was taken to Grayson Country Detention Center in Kentucky, where she awaits her release or deportation. She left behind three children, two of them U.S. citizens, and a husband. She calls when she can, said her husband, who asked that his name be withheld, fearing ICE retaliation. Though he first tried to shield their two younger kids from the truth, telling them that their mother was at work, time, fear and reality that she may be deported, caught up to him. Now the children know, though they don't fully understand, that their mother is in jail. 'There are times when I hear her crying through the phone,' Lopez's husband said. 'I know it is not easy to be in there.' Their older son, a 13-year-old, whose name the Tribune is withholding at the family's request, said he worries constantly about his mother, especially after learning about the complaints of conditions at facilities such as Broadview. 'There are nights when I can't sleep thinking about my mom,' the teen said. 'I wonder if she's sleeping, or if she even got to eat.' Immigrant rights advocates complain that such conditions not only violate detainees' human rights, but also ICE's own policies. 'It's overflowed. They're not able to take people out within the times they are supposed to,' said Brandon Lee, with the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights. In July, advocates outlined their concerns about the Broadview facility's violations of state law in a letter to Raoul and Cook County State's Attorney Eileen O'Neill Burke, asking for their support. But both elected officials said that they do not possess direct investigating authority over ICE. Raoul added that only Congress could step in, while noting that reports of conditions at Broadview, 'while disturbing, are consistent with the deplorable conditions we have seen at federal ICE facilities around the nation.' Fred Tsao, senior policy counsel at the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights, agreed that state law cannot force changes at federally operated facilities like Broadview. He said the group is pushing Congress for more oversight of ICE operations, which the Republican-controlled body infused with a significant boost in cash to ramp up immigration enforcement, including building new detention centers. Some advocates want Broadview shut down altogether. 'The 'facilities' also use torture-based tactics to create an even more hostile environment inside for immigrants — from lights on all the time that don't let them sleep, lack of medical care, lack of mental health support from officers — to the point that individuals detained had to create networks of emotional support,' said Antonio Gutierrez, co-founder and current Strategic Coordinator for Organized Communities Against Deportations. Without oversight, federal agencies may get away with violating their own rules and with that the rights of immigrants, said Ramirez, who represents Illinois' 3rd Congressional District. In a speech on the House floor June 25, Ramirez noted the irony that ICE insisted the Broadview facility was a processing center, and not a detention center, so it didn't have to allow members of Congress inside. 'Let me be very clear. Just because something isn't named a detention facility doesn't mean this administration isn't going to use it as one,' she said at the time. 'If people are detained there, it is a detention facility, period.' For now, the families of detained loved ones endure — whether it is Chavez back in Honduras, thousands of miles away from her three children, or Lopez, who is only a couple of hundred of miles away from her three children, but still unable to see them. Even if Lopez's husband wanted to take the children to see their mother in detention, the trip would be too difficult, he said. The family lives in north suburban Lake County and Lopez is in Kentucky. Chavez said she is still trying to comprehend how she ended up detained, sleeping on the cold floor in Broadview, shackled and deprived of basic necessities. 'We prayed. Sometimes we braided each other's hair. We cried,' recalling her detention in Broadview and Kentucky, Chavez said. Her lawyer said they will continue to appeal her asylum case from Honduras.
