Ohio

Police in Northeast Ohio plan to use ‘drones as first responders’ to help with emergency calls

Published

1 month ago

January 13, 2026

Police in Northeast Ohio plan to use ‘drones as first responders’ to help with emergency calls

AKRON, Ohio (WOIO) – High tech police drones are responding quickly to emergencies, offering a bird’s-eye view from the skies. And their use by local police departments is taking off.

Police in northeast Ohio believe using ‘drones as first responders’ will make the community safer and protect their officers too.

19 Investigates got a rare look behind the scenes to show you how it works and how drones can be deployed without an officer on scene.

Skydio, headquartered in California, makes these drones.

They brought a “demo dock” to Akron police to show us how dock-based drones work and allow drones to respond immediately to calls.

“It’s all about safety. We’re all about making the officers more safe, making the community more safe. And that’s really the end goal here,” said Noreen Charlton.

Charlton leads public safety strategy for Skydio.

She said police officers don’t have to be expert drone pilots to operate them.

That’s why they built a drone that is easy to fly.

“So the Skydio drones are constantly building the environment around themselves so that they know where they are flying and you can confidently fly without having to worry about crashing,” Charlton said.

Drones as first responders

Charlton believes “drones as first responders” is changing policing.

Officers responding to emergencies don’t have to fly a drone on their own anymore if their agency uses a dock-based system that houses and launches the drones from locations across a city.

Instead, they can rely on other officers who remotely control the drones from a command center set up at police headquarters or another location.

Police departments in cities across the country are installing these docks, which pair with the drones Skydio manufactures.

“We’re getting the drone in the air and overhead in less than two minutes, which means that the responding officers can watch this live stream from the drone while they are en route to the call,” Charlton said.

Charlton said that ability is providing officers better situational awareness when they arrive on scene.

“They can slow down, they can make better tactical decisions, and this is leading to the ability to de-escalate situations and reducing potential use of force,” she said.

She said faster response times using drones are even capturing crime in progress.

“We’re getting video evidence of that, which is leading to faster case resolution and holding people accountable for the crimes that they’re committing in these communities,” Charlton said.

There are also smaller drones for flying inside.

Skydio said these drones gives officers eyes inside before they enter a building.

A Skydio demo dock for drones sits on top of the Akron police building.(WOIO)

Drone docks in action

We watched a demonstration of how the drone docks work from the top of the roof of the Akron police headquarters, a high-rise building towering over South High Street.

This was a ‘demo dock’ set up temporarily by SkyDio.

A drone sat inside of the dock while the police drone pilots operated it from a command center several floors below.

The dock started beeping and opened and the drone readied for takeoff, its blades spinning.

After a simple command, it lifted up into the sky over the city and traveled to wherever police needed it to go.

“With the click of a button, the drone is flying there on its own. The officer can take over at any point,” Charlton said. “There is always an operator or a pilot in a chair somewhere, a dispatch center or a real-time crime center that is controlling the drone.”

Drones can come back to the dock when they need to charge. Another drone can be sent out in the meantime if a call comes in.

Law enforcement agencies can place docks like this where they get the most calls for service.

The drones have red and blue lights so it’s clear they are operated by law enforcement, Charlton said. They also have speakers to talk to people.

They can fly in extreme heat and cold and handle windy conditions.

Akron police advancing drone program

Akron police have seven drones with 20 pilots right now and four more drones on the way.

The drones have been used to chase suspects, help with search and rescue missions and missing children investigations.

Lt. Michael Murphy with Akron police said drones have been a game changer.

They believe it will reduce violent crime in the city and keep officers safe too.

“It makes this job much safer for our officers because it gives us the ability to view things without having to put the officers in danger, in harm’s way,” Murphy said.

Akron police are not operating the drones with docks yet.

They said they hope to rollout at least three docks in the city this year for their next steps in their “Drones as First Responders” (DFR) program.

They said they already have all of the required FAA waivers and are looking into grants to help pay for them.

Akron police said the drones cost about $15-16,000.

Ohio agencies using Skydio drones

Six law enforcement agencies in Ohio use Skydio drones including Cleveland police.

Cleveland police said they have nine Skydio drones and seven pilots with their FAA certification and they’re considering getting the docks in the future.

Cincinnati police is the only agency in Ohio using dock-based drones right now, according to Skydio.

The company serves more than 800 public safety agencies across the country.

Privacy concerns addressed

Some citizens and experts have concerns about police drones, from privacy to surveillance.

The American Civil Liberties Union recognizes “drones have many beneficial uses” for police but recommends proper regulation and safeguards. The organization suggests limiting drone usage to incidents involving warrants, emergencies or specific crime evidence collection.

And when it comes to data retention, the ACLU recommends agencies only save images that may contain evidence of a crime or are relevant to an ongoing investigation or trial.

We asked SkyDio about these privacy concerns.

“Most agencies are developing policies around their DFR program being specifically for response to calls for service,” Noreen Charlton said. “So the community members calling in something to 911 and then using the drone for that and being very explicit about not using them for surveillance,” she said.

Many police agencies using drones maintain transparency dashboards showing flight information to the public. Cleveland police operates a transparency dashboard you can see here.

Akron Police do not have a dashboard, but they said they have plans for one in the near future.

Need an investigation? Contact 19 Investigates with your request.

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Ohio

Ohio woman sentenced in $775,000 Medicaid scheme

Published

4 hours ago

February 27, 2026

Press Room

COLUMBUS — A Lake County woman was sentenced this morning to jail time and ordered to pay $775,000 in restitution for fraudulently billing Medicaid, Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost announced. “She inflated her earnings through brazen fraud, but her scheme burst wide open when our investigators got the case,” Yost said. “Cheating taxpayers comes with […]

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Ohio

‘Catastrophic’ Ohio farm fire kills 6,000 hogs and pigs, officials say

Published

16 hours ago

February 27, 2026

Press Room

‘Catastrophic’ Ohio farm fire kills 6,000 hogs and pigs, officials say

A wind-swept blaze at an Ohio hog farm complex caused “catastrophic” damage and left thousands of pigs dead, fire officials said, marking another devastating barn inferno contributing to the deaths of millions of animals in recent years.

The massive fire occurred on Wednesday, Feb. 25, at Fine Oak Farms in Union Township, Madison County, located west of Ohio’s capital of Columbus, according to the Central Townships Joint Fire District. Fire crews received a report of a barn fire shortly before 12 p.m. local time.

The incident was later upgraded to a commercial structure fire after Chief Brian Bennington observed a “large column of smoke visible from a distance” and requested additional resources. Multiple local fire departments, along with several other emergency agencies, were called to the scene.

“What our crews encountered upon arrival was a very difficult and heartbreaking incident,” Bennington said in a statement on Feb. 26.

The fire chief described the facility as a large farm complex used for hog production consisting of five large agricultural buildings, including four that housed about 7,500 hogs. When crews arrived at the scene, they found two of the barns engulfed in flames, Bennington said.

Crews were challenged by windy conditions that significantly impacted fire suppression efforts, according to Bennington. Three barns were destroyed in the fire, and about 6,000 hogs and pigs were killed.

Firefighters saved one barn and about 1,500 hogs, the fire chief added. No injuries were reported in the incident.

Bennington highlighted the assistance of the farming community throughout Madison and Clark counties, as multiple farmers responded with water trucks to help with water supply efforts. “Rural Ohio’s agricultural community is tight-knit, and they truly step up when one of their own is in need,” he said.

The incident remains under investigation, and the Ohio State Fire Marshal’s Office will determine the fire’s cause and origin. Bennington said there is no suspicion of arson and no ongoing threat to the public at this time.

‘Rapidly changing fire behavior conditions’

Heavy smoke from the fire could be seen for miles, and Bennington said first-arriving units were met with fire conditions coming from the opposite side of the hog farm complex.

The fire chief noted that the incident required extensive water-shuttle operations due to rural water-supply limitations in the area. Crews attempted to cut the fire off by deploying multiple handlines and using an aerial device, but “faced extremely challenging conditions throughout the incident,” according to Bennington.

Sustained winds of about 20 mph with gusts up to 35 mph accelerated the fire’s spread, Bennington said. The high winds made it “extremely difficult” to contain forward fire progression and created “rapidly changing fire behavior conditions” across the agricultural complex, he added.

After about four to five hours, the fire was contained by fire personnel from four different counties, according to the fire chief.

“Unfortunately, the fire resulted in catastrophic damage to the business,” Bennington said in an earlier statement on Feb. 25. “A significant portion of the agricultural structures were destroyed.”

Latest major fire to impact an Ohio hog farm

The incident at Fine Oak Farms is the latest major fire to cause significant damage to an Ohio hog farm in recent years.

In August 2024, about 1,100 pigs were killed in Versailles, a village about 50 miles northwest of Dayton, Ohio, according to data from the nonprofit Animal Welfare Institute. In March 2022, about 2,000 hogs died in a barn fire at Kenneth Scholl Hog Farm in Brown Township, just west of Columbus.

Before the fire at Fine Oak Farms, the Animal Welfare Institute reported that other barn fires in Ohio this year killed 162 sheep, horses, cows, chickens, and other animals.

Hundreds of thousands of animals killed in barn fires each year

Data from the Animal Welfare Institute shows that hundreds of thousands of animals are killed in barn fires across the country each year. Since 2013, over 9 million farm animals have been killed in barn fires, according to the organization.

As of Feb. 26, the Animal Welfare Institute reported that 118,738 farm animals have died in U.S. barn fires this year, including the incident at Fine Oak Farms. The majority of farm animals killed were chickens in separate incidents in North Carolina and Georgia in January, and another incident in Missouri earlier this month.

“Most fatal barn fires occurred in colder states, particularly the Upper Midwest and the Northeast. New York, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Illinois had the highest number of barn fires, respectively,” according to the organization. “The amount of cold weather a state experienced appeared to be a greater factor in the prevalence of barn fires than the intensity of a state’s animal agriculture production.”

In an updated report on farm animal deaths due to barn fires in 2025, the Animal Welfare Institute said more than 2.53 million farm animals were killed in barn fires from 2022 to 2024. The organization noted that the high death toll was “driven primarily” by fires at large operations that housed several thousand to over 1 million farm animals.

The majority of deaths in these incidents during that period, over 98%, were farmed birds, such as chickens and turkeys, according to the Animal Welfare Institute. But in 2023, a massive fire at a west Texas dairy farm became the single deadliest event involving livestock in the state’s history and the deadliest cattle fire in America in at least a decade.

18,000 head of cattle perished in the fire at the South Fork Dairy farm near Dimmitt, Texas. At the time, Roger Malone, who is the former mayor of Dimmitt, called the incident “mind-boggling.”

“I don’t think it’s ever happened before around here. It’s a real tragedy,” Malone said.

Contributing: Rick Jervis, USA TODAY; Shahid Meighan, Columbus Dispatch

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Ohio

Ohio’s LaRose pushes back on voter fraud critics, Democrats

Published

1 day ago

February 26, 2026

Press Room

Ohio’s LaRose pushes back on voter fraud critics, Democrats

Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose discussed voter fraud and Ohio’s efforts to prevent it during a recent radio appearance.

LaRose appeared on “The Bill Cunningham” radio show, where he defended the state’s efforts to minimize voter fraud. A clip posted on X shows audio of LaRose arguing that policies aimed at preventing voter fraud are necessary even though cases are rare.

Here’s what to know.

Secretary of State Frank LaRose says voter fraud in Ohio is rare, compares prevention efforts to TSA security

In the clip, LaRose says that Democrats claim voter fraud is rare, and should be ignored.

“The left claims that voter fraud is rare, so we should just ignore it,” he said. “Well, airplane hijackings are also rare — we don’t abolish the TSA. The reason why we keep voter fraud rare in states like Ohio because we do these very things that they’re trying to take away from me.”

LaRose announced the inaugural meeting of the new Ohio Election Integrity Commission, which replaces what he called the flawed Ohio Elections Commission, in January 2026. The new committee, he says, will be used in “enforcing Ohio’s election laws, reviewing alleged violations, and ensuring accountability in matters relating to voting.”

In October 2025, LaRose said that he forwarded more than 1,000 cases of voter fraud to the U.S. Department of Justice. The cases involved 1,084 noncitizen individuals who appear to have registered to vote unlawfully in Ohio, and 167 noncitizens who appear to have also cast a ballot in a federal election since 2018.

In February 2026, President Donald Trump said Republicans should “nationalize” elections. He also accused Democrats of bringing migrants into the United States to illegally vote, a claim that is not backed by evidence, USA TODAY reports.

Voter fraud in the U.S. is considered rare nationwide, according to NPR, but there are still debates from both political sides on how frequently it occurs.

What is voter fraud?

Electoral fraud is defined as illegally interfering with the process of an election, according to Ballotpedia. This includes in-person voter fraud, absentee or mail ballots and illegal voter suppression.

Criminal penalties can include fines or imprisonment for up to five years, according to U.S. code. In Ohio, election interference can carry a felony of the fourth degree, according to Ohio Code.

Voter fraud is often a topic of debate among Democrats and Republicans, where organizations such as the conservative Heritage Foundation maintains a database claiming to show nearly 1,500 cases of election fraud since the year 2000.

Meanwhile, research by law professor Justin Leavitt published in 2014 found 31 cases of in-person voter fraud among billions of ballots cast from 2000–2014, according to Ballotpedia.

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