Police tout using drone to disarm incapacitated person in “nationwide first”

It is unclear what happened to the gun that the suspect supposedly possessed at one point.

The sheriff’s office praised the “incredible display of creativity, skill and precision by the drone pilot” in its Facebook post. But several comments on the sheriff’s office Facebook post alluded to the fact that the suspect was not actively moving, including a popular comment from Vic Moss, CEO and cofounder of the Drone Service Providers Alliance, a drone industry trade association based in Lakewood, Colorado.

“The dude was comatose,” Moss wrote in the Facebook comment. “You could’ve disarmed him with a marshmallow. But congrats on good use of the drone.”

In an interview with The Hill on NewsNation, Jim Cooper, head of the Sacramento County Sheriff’s Office, said the suspect “may have overdosed” after initially responding to law enforcement. But he praised a patrol officer for coming up with the magnet idea and said it “possibly saved someone’s life, preventing us from taking a life.”

Such opportunities to safely disarm an armed suspect using a drone may still be rare as long as the person is fully conscious. In an October 2025 incident, a man armed with a rifle shot down one of the drones operated by the Sacramento County Sheriff’s Office before officers negotiated his surrender.

Rise of drones as first responders

The main law enforcement use of drones is still geared toward scouting for situational awareness and overhead surveillance. Cooper told The Hill that his officers use drones “all the time to fly into houses, through a garage door, doggy doors.” The sheriff’s office has previously shared other promotional videos featuring drones, including a video about one of the drone operators on its SCOUT (Sheriff’s Craft Observation, Utilizing Technology) team posted on March 5, 2026.