Community members packed the Cleveland Community Police Commission meeting on Nov. 20 to oppose a new police drone policy. The policy introduced by Commissioner Piet van Lier included sections which enable Cleveland police to use drones to surveil protests under the guise of public safety.
After public outrage and a contentious meeting, one section of the drone policy that could target protesters was removed. However, the policy that was approved by the Commission still included concerning language, such as: “[Drone] operators shall not fly over large crowds unless exigent circumstances exist or unless absolutely necessary for law enforcement purposes and approved by the onsite command officers.“
“There are so many problems with this drone policy. It should have been completely rewritten,” said Commissioner Teri Wang, an opponent of the introduced policy. “The Commission was not provided sufficient time and access to review the policy before it was presented for a vote. It is still unclear to me how this policy was even written and who was involved. Certainly the public was not properly engaged.”
The policy was first introduced and voted upon at a committee meeting on Nov. 11. Wang, who is listed as a committee member on the CPC website, was not informed of the meeting ahead of time. The committee voted in favor of bringing the policy to the full Commission.
After another committee meeting on Nov. 18, there was an exchange between Wang and van Lier related to the drone policy. Wang filmed herself asking van Lier why he misled the Commission about whether the drone policy had been reviewed by Constitutional experts.
“When I questioned Piet, he spun around, approached me with a menacing glare, yanked my cell phone out of my hand, and then threw it,” Wang told Liberation News. Footage of the exchange appears to corroborate the claims of Wang. A report was made by the police following the incident, in which Wang alleges battery.
At the Nov. 20 CPC meeting, numerous community members spoke out against the drone policy during public comment.
One speaker was Shejuti Wahed, a student at Case Western Reserve University and a pro-Palestine advocate on campus. “[This] is a clear violation of First Amendment rights, and an increase in state control of the people. While this policy is based on the drone policy from Oakland, [California] that policy prohibits drone use during protests,” said Wahed.
Numerous students at CWRU have raised concerns of surveillance and retaliation for Palestinian advocacy in the past year. The U.S. Department of Education recently opened a Title VI investigation into the university following allegations of discrimination against Palestinian, Arab and Muslim students.
Crystal Knight, a community organizer who provides support to individuals falsely accused by Cleveland police, also spoke out against the policy. “What’s more concerning to me is that [the drones] are in the hands of some of the most vile, corrupt people,” said Knight. “The Commission has done nothing but collaborate with, excuse, praise and protect these officers.”
The proposed drone policy has similar language to the policy adopted by the Massachusetts State Police, a policy the ACLU has claimed was used to monitor Black Lives Matter protesters in 2020: “[T]he MSP, in partnership with local police, used drones to surveil Black Lives Matter protests across the state. Under the guise of ‘crowd control, traffic incident management and temporary perimeter security,’ the MSP was actively surveilling people exercising their First Amendment rights.”
The move to expand the surveillance technology available to Cleveland’s police follows a year of protests against the U.S.-sponsored genocide in Palestine. On Nov. 24, a suspected police drone was spotted over a pro-Palestine protest. Five individuals were cited at the protest for protected First Amendment activity.
Protest movements are expected to grow under the Trump administration. A coalition of Cleveland community organizations have announced a protest for Jan. 20, 2025 to inaugurate a fight back against Trump’s extreme-right billionaire agenda. Organizers say the increased repression will only breed more resistance.
Feature photo: The Cleveland Community Police Commission push through a vote on drone policy amidst conflict and public outrage on Nov. 20. Photo credit: Cleveland Community Police Commission
