Riverside County Sheriff’s Department pitches real-time crime center to Rancho Mirage in first city presentation

RANCHO MIRAGE, Calif. (KESQ) The Riverside County Sheriff's Department wants to build a real-time crime center in the Coachella Valley like the one Palm Springs Police Department recently launched and on Thursday, Rancho Mirage became the first city council the department has pitched.

The plan centers on a "drone as first responder" model: when a 911 call comes in, a pilot launches a drone that can reach the scene and give deputies a live aerial view before they arrive. Sheriff's officials told the council the goal is faster response, better information and de-escalation fewer deputies racing toward a call with only a frantic caller's partial account to go on.

The department says it tested the technology during the Coachella and Stagecoach festivals, running drones on calls for service in La Quinta to gauge how cell networks held up with roughly 100,000 people in town. On average, officials said, drones were getting eyes on scene in about 15 seconds.

To illustrate the benefit, the presenter described a recurring local call: children playing with water guns at the park near the Rancho Mirage library, reported as a man with a gun. With a drone overhead, he said, deputies can see it's kids before they respond — "we're not pulling our guns out when we don't need to."

Addressing privacy concerns, the department said the drones would respond only to calls for service, not conduct random patrols, and that a public transparency portal would post the flight path and details of every deployment. Officials said the cameras can see up to five miles.

No vote was taken today as the item was for discussion only.

The sheriff's department, which presented the plan through the valley's joint public-safety commission, said the same proposal goes to Indian Wells later this month and Palm Desert in July.