Wisconsin Police deploy drone to catch serial park pooper

File this one under things you don’t expect drones to be used for, but here we are.

A police department in Wisconsin says it used a drone, along with trail cameras, to identify and cite a woman accused of repeatedly defecating in a local public park. And yes, the drone caught the suspect in the act.

According to the Stoughton Police Department, officers had been fielding dozens of complaints from residents who kept discovering human feces and used toilet paper scattered along a walking path in one of the city’s parks. The department hasn’t publicly named the park, but the reports kept coming in.

At first, police thought it might be a one-off situation. It wasn’t.

“When we first learned of it, we thought it was going to be isolated,” Lt. Chad O’Neil told local media. “But then with neighbors and users of the park continuing to call us to complain about it, I realized that it wasn’t going away.”

So officers escalated.

The department installed trail cameras along the path and began reviewing the footage. Over time, they noticed a pattern: the same person appeared to be using the park as a bathroom during the early morning hours, returning again and again.

Once that pattern was established, police brought out a drone.

Early one morning, a trained drone operator monitored the area from above. That’s when the department says the drone recorded a 46-year-old woman defecating in the park. Officers then made contact with her on the ground.

The woman, a resident of Stoughton, was cited for indecent conduct.

In a statement posted online, the Stoughton Police Department emphasized that the woman is not homeless and that officers do not believe she has mental health concerns. When questioned, police say she explained that she used the bathroom “at a certain time and location based on a personal pattern.”

That explanation, however, didn’t stop the citations, or the internet reaction.

The department’s social media post bluntly summarized the incident: “SPD uses drone to arrest serial defecator in city park.” The phrasing alone was enough to send the story ricocheting across social media, where commenters were equal parts horrified, amused, and impressed by the unusual use of police technology.

While drones are more commonly associated with search-and-rescue operations, missing persons cases, or crash scene documentation, this incident highlights how law enforcement agencies are increasingly turning to aerial tools for quality-of-life complaints — especially when traditional patrols aren’t solving the problem.

It also raises uncomfortable but inevitable questions about surveillance, privacy, and where communities draw the line when a nuisance becomes a public health concern. Either way, one thing is clear: for residents who were tired of watching where they stepped on their morning walks, the problem is officially… grounded.

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