The domestic drone industry has an image problem that's gotten so bad that they worry the public might try to shoot down unmanned aircraft used by law enforcement, proponents of the technology said at an industry meeting in Arlington, Va., Thursday.
"There's a pervasive belief that these are going to be used to spy—this is what our country is thinking, it's what they're being told, it's what they're assuming and seeing in the media," Steve Ingley, executive director of the Airborne Law Enforcement Association, said Thursday. "At this point, the first person who shoots down a [drone] will be a hero."
Ingley says the advent of companies such as the Oregon-based Domestic Drone Countermeasures—which plans to sell a box that makes drones "unable to complete their missions" without shooting them down—indicates that the public misunderstands what law enforcement wants to use unmanned aircraft for.
It's a sentiment that has been expressed before—conservative commentator Judge Andrew Napolitano said on Fox News last year that "the first American patriot that shoots down one of these drones that comes too close to his children in his backyard will be an American hero."
Though no law enforcement drones have been shot down in American skies, there have been several reports of citizens downing private or hobbyist drones. Last year, an animal rights group drone that was monitoring a "pigeon shoot" near a South Carolina shooting club was shot by members of the club.
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