Aurora’s elected officials on Monday night agreed to have the city’s police force coordinate with the U.S. military and the FBI to prevent drone operators from flying unmanned aircraft systems over Buckley Space Force Base.
Under the agreement approved by the City Council, the city’s police will “assist, respond, detect, detain and investigate” when people fly drones over the secured military installation in eastern Aurora. The agreement directs Aurora police, in cooperation with the FBI, to deal with any suspicious drone activity outside Buckley’s fence line that could be part of an attempt to fly over the base.
The agreement comes nearly a week after federal lawmakers in Washington, D.C., took testimony on the topic at a hearing of the U.S. House Subcommittee on Military and Foreign Affairs.
During the hearing, it was revealed that there were 350 detections of drones at 100 American military installations last year alone.
In a statement to The Denver Post last week, an unnamed Buckley spokesperson wrote that the agreement was necessary because the base has “limited or no jurisdiction to detain operators located off the installation, or to obtain pertinent information without the assistance of civilian law enforced departments.”
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