As NYC eases drone restrictions, NYPD expands its fleet with BRINC LEMUR 2 tactical UAVs

In the wake of the city’s recent decision to introduce permitting procedures expected to ease its notoriously tight drone restrictions, the New York Police Department (NYPD) has moved to expand its own fleet by procuring cutting-edge BRINC tactical UAVs designed for use in critical situations to reduce threat to human lives.

The NYPD’s acquisition involves an unspecified number LEMUR 2 drones, which BRINC conceived and produces for deployment by police, fire, public safety, and disaster response services. Introduced last March, the aerial asset builds on the considerable tech aboard first-generation LEMUR craft. In doing so, the UAV provides forces remote access to and enhanced situational awareness of conflict and other situations in which direct human intervention would involve high risk of injury or death.

Read: BRINC launches the enhanced LEMUR 2 drone, tailored to public safety operators [Updated with video]

DroneDJ obtained confirmation of the NYPD’s new BRINC drone purchase, which the New York Post initially reported as involving less than 10 LEMUR 2 craft worth nearly $87,750. According to an outside 2022 audit of official fleets in the state, the city’s police department previously possessed 19 craft, including 14 DJI drones it bought in 2018.

As is its habit, the Rupert Murdoch-owned Post seasoned its piece with considerable emphasis on the potential political consequences the procurement could involve – citing past opposition by the city’s civil liberty groups to any deployment of tech by NYPD that could be used for public surveillance purposes. It similarly stressed the department’s increased drone use, testing, and pilot training of drones under Adams – himself a former police officer – as it reported a strengthening of law enforcement assets it typically cheers elsewhere.

Whether that rather transparent grating of sensitivities succeeds in reigniting past reaction remains to be seen. Either way, however, is the acquisition of LEMUR 2 tactical drones is clearly in sync with the underlying logic of increased UAV use for a wide array of objectives in New York, and the NYPD’s own broader, better deployment of the craft in its work.

Read: New York City eases draconian drone rules with new drone permit process

Its new tactical drones should certainly contribute to that.

LEMUR 2 UAVs provide groundbreaking two-way communication capabilities, a capacity to shatter glass barriers, optimized systems for indoor flight, and other critical features for emergency intervention – including 10 different sensors. 

Among that front-facing tech is a LiDAR sensor, tracking camera, white light spotlight, 4K camera, FLIR thermal imager, microphone-loudspeaker tandem, and two IR spotlights. The ensemble enables visual, nighttime, 3D, and thermal imaging, as well as two-way communication between the operator and anyone in the craft’s proximity. 

In using LEMUR 2 drones, the NYPD joins BRINC’s list of US police departments relying on the craft in crisis situations, as well as defense units in Ukraine flying them for safe advance inspection of Russian-bombed or potentially booby-trapped buildings. The UAVs have also been used in a range of post-disaster response efforts as part of BRINC’s Global Rescue Network.