TL;DR: On July 20, 404 Media reported that the New Orleans Police Department quietly published a June 21, 2026 draft of its drone manual that would have allowed weaponized quadcopters with written approval from the Superintendent of Police. The current manual, dated July 1, 2026, instead states that small unmanned aircraft "shall not be equipped with weapons or hazardous materials of any kind." The New Orleans City Council had approved $250,000 for the NOPD drone program on June 24, 2026, three days after the weaponized-draft was published. Skydio CEO Adam Bry told 404 Media that the drone industry "got some things wrong" when it promised not to weaponize its products, and walked back the 2020 statement Skydio had signed: "we will not put weapons on our drones and will oppose fully autonomous lethal weapons systems." The episode lands inside a national trend: armed drones are moving from federal-military use into local police forces, and the policy guardrails have not kept up [1][2][3].
Two Drafts in Ten Days
NOPD's drone operations manual, formally Chapter 43.5 of the department's policy series on small unmanned aircraft systems (sUAS), had a clear rule in its February 7, 2024 version: "The sUAS shall not be equipped with weapons of any kind" [1].
On June 21, 2026, a new version of Chapter 43.5 appeared on the NOPD website. The new draft removed the weapons ban and, according to 404 Media's reading, would have allowed weaponized drones with written approval from the Superintendent of Police [1][3]. The local transparency group Eye on Surveillance flagged the change the same day, with the headline "NOPD Police Drones Can Now Be Equipped With Weapons!" and the note that NOPD had "previously assured the public and City Council that these drone will not carry weapons" [3].
By July 1, 2026, the manual on the NOPD site read differently. The current published version states: "The sUAS shall not be equipped with weapons or hazardous materials of any kind" [1]. In a statement to 404 Media, the department said: "The manual published on July 1 is the current published version of the policy. Earlier versions were draft versions that were presented for review before adoption of the current policy." NOPD also told 404 Media: "NOPD has made it clear we are not and will not be equipping drones with weapons or other hazardous materials" [1].
Skydio Walks Back Its 2020 "No Weapons" Pledge
Skydio, the U.S. drone manufacturer that supplies most of NOPD's fleet, signed a 2020 statement with the company's "Engagement Principles" pledge: "we will not put weapons on our drones and will oppose fully autonomous lethal weapons systems" [1].
Six years later, Skydio CEO Adam Bry told 404 Media that the pledge was a mistake. "This is an area where I think I've gotten some things wrong," Bry said [1][2]. The Electronic Frontier Foundation, which published its own analysis on June 26, quoted Bry from a separate interview: "We said some things previously that led folks externally and internally to believe that, for example, we would prevent the military from putting weapons on our drones" [2].
Asked what Skydio would do if a police customer wanted to weaponize one of its drones, Bry was blunt. "It's not our place to tell them what they can and can't do," he said, adding: "They don't care what our policy says." His framing of the broader industry pledge was just as direct: "I think when you start trying to draw these bright lines and say: this is good, this is bad, more often than not you're going to end up on the wrong side of moral questions" [1].
EFF Senior Policy Analyst Matthew Guariglia's read of the reversal: "Clearly they're thinking about it." On the use-of-force stakes, Guariglia added: "We have seen how consequence-free it can be for officers to deploy force" [1].
The $250,000 Drone Budget and the 4-3 Council Vote
Three days after the weaponized-draft was published, the New Orleans City Council voted on the NOPD drone program. According to 404 Media, the council approved a $250,000 budget for the drone program on June 24, 2026. The vote, which Eye on Surveillance recorded councilmember-by-councilmember, ran 4-3: Jean-Paul "JP" Morrell, Freddie King III, Eugene J. Green, and Jason Hughes voted in favor; Matthew Willard and Aimee McCarron voted against; Lesli Harris was absent [1][3].
The drone program sits alongside a separate, parallel surveillance footprint in New Orleans. NOPD already runs a Drone-as-First-Responder program in the French Quarter, and the city has spent years in a public fight with the ACLU over NOPD's use of Project New Orleans, a private facial recognition system that records live camera feeds from around the city [1][4]. The drone expansion is the procurement vehicle on top of that surveillance layer.
The National Picture: Armed Drones Without Federal Guardrails
The NOPD episode is one data point in a national trend EFF has been documenting since 2021 [2]. EFF's June 26 piece describes a new pilot called Campus Guardian Angel, scheduled for Fall 2026 at five high schools in Georgia and additional Florida high schools, where drones are "designed to swarm, distract, crash into, and even shoot irritants at potential school shooters" [2]. EFF's warning: "antagonizing an active shooter with a small drone is a dangerous idea," and the demos in industry marketing "revolve around crashing drones into stationary mannequins in pristine, controlled conditions" [2].
Federal law does prohibit weaponized drones outright. The FAA Reauthorization Act of 2018 (Public Law 115-254) bars the agency from authorizing "any operation of a small unmanned aircraft that involves a dangerous weapon," and FAA's small-UAS rule under 14 CFR 107.9 carries that restriction forward [1]. The loophole is structural: the ban covers small commercial drones and certain operators, not the full range of public-safety and large-platform exemptions. EFF's policy ask is direct. "Cities should not procure weaponized drones or robots, and multi-purpose drones and robots should be restricted from causing harm," the group wrote in June, calling for restrictions that cover "deadly force and less-lethal measures like kinetic strikes, pepper spray, rubber bullets, or tasers" [2].
San Francisco became the first city to "ban police from using deadly force via robots" in 2022, and Axon paused its taser-drone project the same year after public backlash [2]. Both decisions were municipal. EFF frames the federal framework as out of step with where local policy has gone, and where Bry's interview now says the industry is heading.
What to Watch
The Campus Guardian Angel pilots. The Fall 2026 start dates in Georgia (five high schools) and Florida are the next test of whether armed or irritant-deploying drones actually deploy against a live threat [2].
The NOPD Drone-as-First-Responder rollout. NOPD's existing French Quarter DFR program is the operational baseline for whatever comes next on weaponization. Watch the NOPD policy site for any further Chapter 43.5 revisions and the next council vote on expansion [1].
Skydio's customer base. Skydio told 404 Media it does not control what its police customers do with the drones after sale. Other Skydio customers now have to decide whether to follow NOPD's public reversal or stay closer to the June 21 draft language [1][2].
Federal guardrails. The FAA's existing small-UAS weapon ban (Public Law 115-254) is the floor. EFF's June 26 call is for state and municipal procurement restrictions, since the federal framework is unlikely to move on its own [2].
Sources
- 404 Media, Matthew Gault: New Orleans Cops Published Policy Document Allowing Weaponized Drones, July 20, 2026. https://www.404media.co/new-orleans-cops-published-policy-document-allowing-weaponized-drones/
- Electronic Frontier Foundation Deeplinks, Matthew Guariglia: Lawmakers Must Act Now to Prevent Armed Police Drones, June 26, 2026. https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2026/06/lawmakers-must-act-now-prevent-armed-police-drones
- Eye on Surveillance: NOPD Police Drones Can Now Be Equipped With Weapons!, June 21, 2026. https://eyeonsurveillance.org/blog/nopd-weaponized-police-drones
- State of Surveillance: New Orleans Live Facial Recognition Project NOLA, the parallel municipal facial-recognition vessel. /news/new-orleans-live-facial-recognition-project-nola