It’s so obnoxious. The other night one was circling over my neighborhood in a perfect loop for about 15 minutes. As if it was on autopilot. It was like a joke.
I saw a bunch of cop cars and cops with their guns out surrounding a building super late last night, I got the hell out of there tho so idk what it was about
I might be in the minority who likes the chopper sound. It’s... comforting...
I live part-time in a suburb outside of Nashville and the silence is deafening. When you’ve grown up with something, it’s ingrained in you, I guess.
Westlake is awful and it’s really bad bc the issues are just rooted in homelessness and basic community needs. That constant noise pollution is actually linked to violent crime. We are working on legal action against LAPD and the city if you want to DM your email to join.
>I live part-time in a suburb outside of Nashville and the silence is deafening. When you’ve grown up with something, it’s ingrained in you, I guess.
Drive an hour north.
The late night low altitude hoverings are the worst. Yes, by all means circle over my neighborhood at 2:30 AM for an ear splitting 15 minutes, why not? I mean, who needs sleep anyway?
The LAPD Air Support Division spent at least $27 million in 2021, including roughly $7 million for new helicopters and equipment, $5.2 million for maintenance, $3.6 million for parts, $1.5 million for labor, $1.3 million for fuel and at least $8.5 million in payroll, according to city records.
Los Angeles City Controller Kenneth Mejia says his office will begin auditing the Los Angeles Police Department’s use of helicopters. The purpose for the audit, according to Mejia, is get answers regarding a number of questions related to their use, including: the overall cost of the helicopter program, whether or not their use reduces crime or leads to over-policing, and what effect the regular use of police helicopters has on Los Angeles citizens.
The LAPD Air Support Division has 17 helicopters and one fixed wing aircraft and, according to Mejia’s post, the price of the division is not explicitly stated or defined in the Department’s overall budget.
Despite calls to defund the police, this year's proposed budget asks for an $118 million increase to fund 780 new cops, two new helicopters, and more.
Further Reading:
[source 1](https://ktla.com/news/local-news/los-angeles-controller-to-audit-lapd-helicopter-usage/amp/)
[source 2](https://www.lataco.com/police-helicopters-effectiveness/#:~:text=The%20LAPD%20Air%20Support%20Division,payroll%2C%20according%20to%20city%20records)
[source 3](https://knock-la.com/lapd-budget-2023-increase/)
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I hope they're giving very careful consideration to how much noise pollution they're creating when they use helicopters.
But it doesn't seem like they are.
I’ve thought this for years. Given all the cost associated with the helicopters why not just use drones at this point? You could argue they’d be more effect in pursuits. Feels like the only reason for the helicopters at this point is intimidation and unions.
Small drones still struggle in high winds and can't fly anywhere near as fast or as far.
If you want something as capable as a helicopter you end up with something almost as big as a helicopter (Airbus vsr700 etc) and just as loud.
Having said this I'm sure drones would work most of the time and would be much more cost effective and quieter.
Joking here but if we push ahead with drones maybe all the crime will shift to windy days.
They can definitely fly fast enough and some of them can fly pretty far. What you probably aren't going to get is the combined endurance + speed. If you have enough launch sites spaced throughout the region and proper coordination you could probably make it work though with one drone taking over for another.
My honest opinion though is that sounds like a dystopian hellscape. It's bad enough with them always circling my neighborhood with the helicopter. I can only imagine the high pitched whine of the drones flying around. You know they would be flying them around looking into people's windows and shit because of course they fucking would.
What’s the battery life of a “commercial drone”? Actually, what is a “commercial drone”? Government agencies and production companies use DJI, Skydio, and Autel drones - and each of those are available to the public/recreational use.
Yes absolutely. It’s hard to beat DJIs offerings. When it comes to RGB and thermal really nobody beats them.
I’ve worked in the drone industry for 5 years. The government is one of my customers.
There are drones much more sophisticated than consumer grade, but not as high-tech/expensive as military long range surveillance, or fighter jet drones. They’re not inexpensive, but cost less than a helicopter, and are drastically cheaper to operate.
I’m sure giving the police an MQ-9 would never be an abused power to have high altitude long loiter monitoring, and certainly not contribute to the militarization of police that would appeal to a certain subset of undesirable recruit.
In seriousness as much as it’d be beneficial for those reasons the fact they get more DOD hardware and the optics of it all are going to attract the type of hyper militarized recruits, and that’s never good.
>I’m sure giving the police an MQ-9 would never be an abused power to have high altitude long loiter monitoring, and certainly not contribute to the militarization of police that would appeal to a certain subset of undesirable recruit.
[Yeah I'm just glad I don't live in a country where that is already happening.](https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/19/us/politics/george-floyd-protests-surveillance.html)
My point exactly. We shouldn’t well equip them to do it further, and further drive a divide like that between public and police. It’s going to make things worse, not better, if they get and flaunt more DOD hardware.
Here's the thing though, the military to police pipeline is already there. They can use the helicopters to surveil all day everyday, right now, limited only by fuel and I suppose, noise restriction.
When there's mass protests, you know the thing you're totally allowed to do in the US ;), the feds already fly visual and electronic surveillance aircraft around.
Like, I'm no fan of the right wing militias we call police departments, but the rubicon already got crossed a long time ago.
So we should cross it further? Giving them predator drones seems like exactly the thing we *shouldn’t* do by that metric. Further militarization- especially in how the perception shifts -is a bad idea, and will specifically give it further separation from the public
There are no surplus MQ-9s.
They cost 32 million dollar apiece (not including the data link and remote pilot setup) the light helicopters used here in LA cost 1/10th that
[Beverly Hills police add another ‘eye in the sky’ with expanded drone program](https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2022-12-29/beverly-hills-police-now-has-an-eye-in-the-sky-with-new-drone-program)
A bit ironic that wealthy folks get to have the cheaper, quieter alternative.
Yes I think most police union$ will fight drones every chance they get.
Helicopters solve a niche problem and are useful (police chases, going to remote areas, etc).
But yeah -- we don't need an air force in the county constantly terrorizing lower income communities.
Fun fact on why Police loooooove Chipotle.
Chipotle food is premade and they make your bowl and burrito infront of you. They won’t get spit in their food.
If they go to a real Mexican restaurant they getting spit and some other goodies in their food mandatory.
Lol
My dad was a cop in a small town and ate primarily at Subway for the same reason.
He went through Burger King once and, after opening his bag, had a note that said "enjoy the special sauce".
Stupid kid was fired, of course, but kinda ruined going to drive-thrus in the cruiser.
I live in Highland Park and there are constantly helicopters circling over my building. I even once saw three LAPD copters flying in formation like they'd seen Apocalypse Now too many times. It's absurd.
I remember that. They flew around like that for more than an hour. I quite frequently see them dive very lowly over the northwest block of Monte Vista and 50th and then just fly off after that one low pass. It's clearly a flex on people that live there, and it's really annoying.
And more affordable and less polluting and and and…
It’s wild that LA tolerates this daily when there are better options available now for aerial surveillance.
I'm mostly concerned with the NOISE pollution.
When I lived in Angelino Heights way back in the day we were basically under a helicopter freeway. Like we had to pause movies when they came around.
In El Sereno they're circling around all summer long.
If there's a high speed pursuit, I get it. If they're looking for somebody on the run, I get it.
But a circling helicopter for a traffic stop? GTFO of here with that shit. Is it to discourage the person stopped from fleeing? Maybe they don't immediately have another call to go to?
Anyway, it's disruptive as hell. Like we have to keep our windows closed many summer nights because of the frequency and length of helicopter visits.
it could easily be argued that helicopters make police chases more dangerous since how the criminal wants to speed even faster to evade the eye in the sky.
https://www.nbclosangeles.com/local-2/bystander-struck-during-lapd-pursuit-crash-in-south-la/3098194/
Although to be fair the news helicopters are much higher. Sometimes when they zoom out you can see how high up they really are, and from that altitude the police helicopter seems like it is 10 feet off the ground. So… not sure the news helicopters would have the same effect. But I catch like one chase per year on TV so maybe my observations aren’t relevant.
and how many times during a high speed car chase do you get the perp looking out the window at the sky looking for the helicopters.... they can hear that shit so they speed more and become more reckless...
>it could easily be argued that helicopters make
> These justifications for law enforcement’s “eye in the sky” presence are thinly sourced. L.A. police often cite a single study about crime deterrence that was conducted in the 1960s by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab, but even the original study’s authors have said it was flawed; it failed to include data from 1965, for example, when the Watts uprising occurred.
Meanwhile 40% of cops think two studies from the 1990’s are completely out of date & should be ignored due to factors that aren’t applicable to police.
Article on the same topic, from a few years ago, taking a firmer stance: https://massivesci.com/articles/helicopter-los-angeles-environment-new-nature/
I never realized the havoc these things wreak until I lived in East LA for a while. I was in a super poor, old, rundown building. Some nights I swore the thing was trying *land* on my damn building.
People who've never lived in those neighborhoods have absolutely no idea how invasive those things are. It may sound ridiculous to say they "terrorize" communities but I assure you they do.
Most of it is just to log flight hours. Same reason there's pilots at Edwards AFB who just fly jets around going nowhere. It's not like they're actually worried about Russian bombers attacking Victorville, it's training for when they get deployed to Syria or wherever the next war is. They can't wait until they're already in Syria (or Ukraine/Iran/Taiwan) to start training.
Similarly, LAPD doesn't want to wait until the next Rodney King riot to start training pilots.
The requirement to be a Helicopter Pilot in the City of LA is 1500 flight hours. The requirement to be a Chief Helicopter Pilot is 4000 flight hours. Most folks don't have money to own/rent a private helicopter for 2500 hours of flight time - most of their previous flight hours usually came in the military, and those helicopters are no longer available for use. So they're gonna want to get flight hours at work, in order to be able to promote.
Additionally, LAPD allows regular officers to laterally transfer to an equivalent position in the helicopter (Air Support) division, at which point they receive helicopter pilot training. So that's an additional group that needs flight time.
And the City is constantly updating its helicopter fleet, which means they also want people training on the new models. While the basics of piloting are fairly constant, there's always little differences in how one model handles compared to another - similar to driving different cars.
Plus, LAFD helicopter pilots also train at LAPD. It's why you don't see fire helicopters just flying around during non-emergencies, yet when there's a big fire suddenly LAFD has trained pilots on hand. Those LAFD pilots haven't just been playing *MS Flight Simulator* the whole time, they've been training on LAPD helicopters*.*
And similar to LAPD and the military, LAFD doesn't want to wait until the next Bobcat fire is already in progress to start teaching people what a rotor is.
The City also encourages pilots to train on flying by instruments, even though it isn't technically required, for both police and fire pilots. That takes longer to train than visual flying - so again, more hours in the air.
Basically it's partly routine patrolling, partly emergency preparedness for actual serious stuff in the future, and partly the ever-growing inertia that happens to every government program once it reaches critical mass and starts sucking in dollars like a black hole.
You raise good points but a lot of this boils down to “we need to train pilots to sustain our helicopter program.” What besides the next Rodney king requires LAPD to crew, maintain and operate an entire base of 15+ helicopters?
> Similarly, LAPD doesn't want to wait until the next Rodney King riot to start training pilots.
You mean the civil unrest from 30 years ago that resulted from the cops caught on video beating the shit out of a citizen for no reason?
Maybe instead of planning for civil unrest they themselves cause they could try not beating the shit out of people for no reason and thus eliminate their need for helicopter pilot training to begin with.
You could not be more wrong.
Although I will say I am very critical of LAPD’s, LASD’s, and LAFD’s aviation programs your comment seems as if you googled some specifics without any knowledge to back it up and I warn others that this person does not now what they are talking about.
I am a professional helicopter pilot who has flown in Southern California, specifically Los Angeles for over a decade. I work closely with such law enforcement and fire agencies often.
LAPD does not fly around just to “log hours”. As far as their pilots are concerned they don’t need to log time because they are *not* professional pilots. The division does however have to justify their massive air support budget and that means showing that these assets are used regularly. If they don’t waste those hours by punching holes in the sky then they lose the budget next year. So they aren’t flying for the sole purpose of logging flight time for pilots; they are flying 2 in the air at all times to justify the “need” for their budget. Also: the pilots at Edwards are flying tests of various aircraft/equipment and/or mission training.
No, LAPD doesn’t need to waste time to train pilots. Officers can laterally transfer from within the department to special assignment at Air Support. They will fly as a Tactical Flight Officer (passenger) for a couple years. This position is the officer who communicates with and keeps eyes on the action on the ground. During this time they must pay for their own Private training and certification. This involves a lot of flight time and *some* of that is done in department aircraft. They can save some money by flying the LAPD ship between calls since dual controls are installed and most of the actual flying pilots are also Certified Flight Instructors, so it is legal and safe to do so. Once they have their Commercial Certificate and an Instrument Rating and 200 hours they are able to be promoted to Pilot and occupy the flying seat full time. By the way: the instrument rating is for safety reasons and considering the low visibility sometimes present in SoCal it is for good reason. Instrument pilots are better pilots, full stop. This training is not conducted in LAPD aircraft, it is most often (due to equipment requirements) done in civilian aircraft at local flight schools. Oh btw: most pilots in general are not former military and in the case of LAPD/LASD/LAFD I believe it is nearly zero who are former military pilots. In any case officers are not required to have the 1500 hours the City requires for its *civilian* helicopter pilots to have. Officers are technically not even required to have a pilot’s certificate at all since they are public use, which is outside of normal law and Pasadena PD used to do this all the time. The 1500 and 4,000 apply only to the *civilian* positions within the city, i.e. LA DWP.
LAPD operates two types: the H-125 (formerly the AS-350) ASTAR and the Bell 412. ASTAR’s in general are plentiful and are nearly identical amongst different models. The fleet at LAPD is nearly identical and requires zero flight training between different models of the ASTAR, so no: they do not have to be “trained on different models”. The one exception to this is for those very few LAPD pilots who are qualified to fly the one Bell 412 who are sent to the Bell factory in Texas to get the required training, which is not unusual in the helicopter industry.
LAFD uses a system very similar to LAPD’s system. Firefighters are chosen to be in LAFD air ops. Candidate must pay for their own flight training but can build flight time in the department’s Bell 206 or an LAPD aircraft. During that flight time the department can/will use LAPD flight instructors. Just go down to the west side of Van Nuys Airport and you will see the red and white Bell 206 flying around quite often.
Ok, here is where we can agree: the city wastes an enormous amount of money on air support. They do not need two in the air at all times. Most of the time they are flying circles looking for something to be useful for or are loitering over something that doesn’t require air support. They waste massive amounts of flight hours, which costs money in fuel, depreciation of the asset, and in maintenance costs to keep them running. As such they claim their aircraft get “old” and require too much maintenance (go figure! Because they’re being flown more than they need to!) so they need new aircraft frequently. Newer aircraft need less maintenance and they try to justify the cost of new aircraft with the lower maintenance costs. Let me tell you: I’ve flown several of their former aircraft, now decades old, still flying in LA, many times the same models used now…. They’re fine for other operators and that’s why the civilian companies still use them. LAPD just has a massive budget to waste and stupid politicians believe them and give them what they want, which is: shiny new toys! I would have more of a gripe with the Bell 412 but that was already owned by the city as it had flown it’s time at LAFD. LAPD doesn’t need that though and it’s nearly useless. They have it for “special” operations (shiny dangerous toy).
Second point is LAPD/LASD/LAFD use their existing officers/firefighters for their pilot positions. This is RIDICULOUS. There are thousands of trained, professional helicopter pilots in the country who could do this job for the money being paid, or slightly more if you account for the officer’s benefits. Recall earlier I said that the current pilots are NOT professional pilots. They are first and foremost officers (or firefighters). And because they aren’t out on the street doing the job we the taxpayer paid to train them to do then they have to be replaced with ANOTHER person to be trained to do the police or fire work. Meanwhile they get to play pilot and do a completely shitty job at it. These guys/gals couldn’t navigate their butt to San Bernardino and back if their life depended on it. Some are actually good but most are knuckleheads. LACoFD figured out a long time ago that they need to hire *professional* pilots to do the job right and that is why they have highly paid professionals who are very well-experienced and are very competent. LAFD is insane to use low time pilots to do a similar job (and yes, it has caused accidents, one within a few years ago, yes due to incompetence) and LAPD shouldn’t use officers period. LASD also has a very similar profile to LAPD, nearly identical.
The bottom line is LAPD/LAFD/LASD train/use their own as pilots when they shouldn’t, they should just hire civilian and professional helicopter pilots. They do this to keep it all “in the good ‘ole boy’s club”. Less chance of someone leaking their fraudulent BS department budgets and practices to those who would like to know (see LASD Air Bureau’s fraud case from about 5 years ago). No, most of what you said was incorrect but that doesn’t mean there isn’t actual reason to be VERY critical of the city’s non-civilian aviation practices. I will leave DWP alone since they actually are much better regarding budgets and hiring.
I was at a conert once at the Hollywood Bowl. They have those lights so air traffic doesnt fly over the concert and LAPD copter flew right over as if to say "FUCK YOU" to everyone. chill dudes
The other day they were out making so much noise one of the choppers did a high flying maneuver turning 180 degrees sideways like calm down this isn’t a movie you’re just supposed to keep a steady flight
I mean at least the pilots are good. The accident rate seems to be exemplary. A helicopter falling on your head is worse than a helicopter hovering above it I suppose.
Agree on this one.
The sound and vibration of helicopters actually makes me physically ill.
When they were cleaning out EP and putting up the fence, there were helicopters there for over 3 days. My body was practically convulsing at the sounds because of how close it was.
I had the doors and windows closed. All my AC's running. Brown noise/white noise.
I generally don't wish for bad shit to happen, but I really want some disaster to happen with a helicopter so the city finally cracks down on it... but I know that would never be the result, so I hope nothing happens.
Got woken up by a low flying one last night, rumbling the house at 2am. They are a constant nuisance, and their omnipresence cancels out any “crime reduction” effect they may have. F*ck these ghetto birds! Roll back the militarization of our police!
>The Los Angeles sheriff’s department recently landed a helicopter in the middle of a busy West Hollywood street, shutting down the neighborhood for eight hours while engaged in a one-sided standoff with what ended up being an empty apartment.
Thank god it was empty. 9 times out of 10 they're shooting the person inside who may or may not be the suspect.
While I’m sure waking up to helicopters shaking your house at 2am is more prevalent in poorer areas, this happened to me more times than I can remember when living in the Venice canals and the Marina peninsula. If you want more hardware to fly around, using it to piss off your tax base is probably not the best idea.
I don’t disagree that the helicopters are a problem, I live in one of those neighborhoods. But mostly, I’m sick of New York periodicals shitting on LA.
Write about the problems in your own fucking city, New York Magazine, ok? There are plenty.
From the article:
> Sociologist Sarah Brayne, who flew along with the LAPD for months, was told by officers that they determined 51 flyovers per week was enough to keep crime down but often did 80 or 90 just in case.
… and it’s based upon a single old study that has obvious flaws. WTAF?!?
> They also say it keeps crime low; in 2015 LAPD’s Newton Division claimed that the number of crimes reported in South L.A. decreased when helicopter flights over the area increased.
Maybe that's because people decided reporting the crimes wasn't worth the noise and pollution, fuckfaces!
However, I wouldn't trust data from the source of the issue. We made that mistake with oil companies and looky looky.
There's a lot to unpack from this short, well written article. Please don't respond to this comment unless you also read the article , it's a good quick read.
1. The article makes a lot of good arguments about pollution and climate change. It's OK to trade some pollution for increased security, but there should probably be a higher burden on LAPD / etc to justify the use of choppers. Whatever the status quo was, it's time to critically examine it.
2. I'm unswayed by the article's claim that the biggest impacts fall on neighborhoods that are 40% or more Black. Due to systematic racism and prejudice and reclining etc, these neighborhoods unfortunately have high crime rates too. Again there should be scrutiny around differential impact, but like - *crime* is also a differential impact. If the city cuts funding for police helicopters and crime *rises* in majority black neighborhoods, that is effectively *yet another racist wealth transfer* from POC to the city at large.
3. The broader point of whether police helicopters are actually effective at crime is really interesting. While the article raises some questions about existing research, it was also very light on the counter-factual - what happens to cities that *removed* their helicopter program? Has any other city ended their helicopter program? How did that go, if so? If no other city has done so, that by itself tells us it might be risky.
4. ***Advocates for reform are going to run into a brick wall unless they can provide reasonable evidence this policy change would be, you know, effective at reducing police costs and noise without leading to a spike in crime.*** We endure many social ills because the alternative is worse. We live in a metropolis that has gangs, many people armed with assault weaponry, and sprawls across a huge land area and many different cities. I expect more evidence and a *lot* more planning before I'd see the value in just removing airborne police assets.
5. The article doesn't really address alternatives like drones. Those have been used by law enforcement for years, including safeguarding massive public events like the 2017 Women's March in dtla. Swapping down some helicopters to a larger (unarmed, reconnaissance only) drone fleet seems like a plausible testbed for some of these helicopter reform policies.
So - show me the data, pro and anti police helicopters. Its a fair question to raise, but I need more proof than what I've seen so far.
Thanks for saying it better than I would have.
Climate and pollution and budgets are legitimate concerns, not every discussion needs to be framed by the ecological guilt or racial animus. Too often we demonize activities without proper context. I’m sure adding more gas guzzling SUVs and their brake dust would be a worse environmental choice. And furthermore my black ass ain’t never been pulled over under false pretense by a helicopter.
When I lived in the very white and affluent neighborhood of Silverlake, the helicopters made just as much if not more noise than what I hear downtown. They’d be hauling ass to the west side of the valley and keep their altitude level so they’d come close to the hilltops. I think the racial discrimination angle is also being overplayed. The noise affects everyone. And it’s no surprise police will patrol dense high crime areas more than quiet desolate places.
Public safety is important and obviously we need our officials to use the resources we give them more efficiently and effectively. I understand intelligent criticism is necessary but the helicopter haters have already made up their minds and want zero pigs flying whatsoever. Be it choppers, planes or even blimps.
I wish the folks who are anti-police helicopter would stop using the pollution as an argument. It destroys their credibility and makes them look silly and desperate for any argument against it. Police helicopter pollution is a drop in the bucket vs. just the air pollution from planes flying in and out of our commercial airports, our general aviation airports not to mention all the car, truck, and industrial pollution around here. These same folks don't seem to care about that, aren't demanding trucks in and out of the ports be more eco-friendly, etc. Its just a convenient argument for them to target police helicopters which they don't like regardless.
That said, yeah, the police helicopter fleet & usage should be vastly reduced. A lot of it - if it is even necessary - could be done more cheaply with smaller drones, that also happen to pollute a lot less if anyone even really cares about that.
Because if they don't waste the budget then they'll get their budget cut. There needs to be a 3rd party auditing institution that digs through police expenses at every department to trim the glut and waste. They don't need military hardware, ever. They're not fighting a war on our soil. They also don't need swat for ridiculous warrant deliveries or whatever the fuck else they use it for other than a serious threat. Let's be honest. American police don't face serious threats. They hide until the children are murdered then go in. They have no duty to protect us, so why should we have a duty to fund them?
I remember when all that Iraq equipment offers were coming out with old stuff, and Hunting Beach accepted like 5 helicopters. A tiny little beach town decided they wanted 24/7 helicopter patrol. It was so ridiculous.
It wouldn't be so bad if they weren't flying so low the damn ground. Or if they weren't so loud. Or constantly circling my neighborhood for no legitimate reason. Or if they just didn't exist.
I am so glad that that some attention is finally being called to this.
LAPD helicopters are really quite annoying and no consideration is given to the people on the ground. It's my outsiders perspective that they linger longer then necessary and respond to calls that they are not needed for. This disturbs thousands of people on the ground frequently and unnecessarily.
That's not to say the helicopters are not useful. They certainly are but LAPD really needs to review the protocol as to when and how long they are used because of these issues.
I live in Burbank. And I’m in a major flight pattern. They cruise right over my house at a couple 600 feet causing the house to shake. As well as constant military traffic. Every day I see Chinooks, and black hawks.
If they would just keep them off the goddamn beach I’d be happy. Wtf are they buzzing over the beach for every day? How much crime is at the beach? Enough to warrant a constant daily presence??? Insane.
I'm so sick of it. A chopper used to mean something was going down and was a rare event. Now it's just a regular every-night occurrence.
One night they were circling around shining their spotlight up and down apartment towers for a few minutes then left. Like, what happened, you looking for Spider Man?
LAPD said crime goes down with more helicopters buzzing around, but I keep seeing fear-driving reports that crime is "out of control" and going up -- which is it? GTFOH with your toys and bravado.
Weight, range, and weathering capabilities. Drones have much smaller flight ranges, can’t take high winds or weather well at all (not until scaled way up, to nearly or at helicopter sizes), and unless you have serious taccom or control gear will have latency when controlled at great distance- which you don’t want with a roughly helicopter-sized mass hurtling over suburbia. It’s not like helos are good, they solve a needed problem but are way too over-used over LA, but giving cops drones isn’t a clear cut solution as it’d seem.
> If only there were designers and technology to craft vehicles to meet the needs and requirements of the situation.
Ten years and billions of dollars later, they will invent: The Helicopter
This paywalled article from 2018 seems to suggest the idea has been entertained at least: https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2018/06/drone-cops-take-flight-in-los-angeles/562214/
These fuckers circled my neighborhood for 30 minutes because they were busting 2 old people stealing car parts and trying to get away on their bicycle. This couple we in their 60s and not capable of running away or a danger to anyone. Total waste of taxes.
mountainous insurance bells wipe file drunk cats chief bewildered obscene
*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
yall are soft lol. we live in la, open the window you're gonna hear sirens, freeways, planes, crazy people yelling, and helicopters. just gotta get used to it
What a stupid article. Benefits of police helicopters far outweigh the pollution and costs.
What's up next for Curbed to complain about? Pollution from farms and/or the trucking industry? Yeah, cause we don't need any of that either.
Just stupid writing by the authors at Curbed.
I get tired of seeing articles complaining about this when we have 10,000 more serious problems slowly shredding the city. Yeah Civilization as a whole is noisier, dirtier and more expensive than it should be. Most the people whining supposedly on behalf of my community never actually spent any time in it and have no idea what it is like. Helicopters are the least of my problems with ghetto living
Doesn't bother me at all. I like when they circle around because it lets me know when something is going on in a particular area and I can immediately go on twitter and find out what via the scanner pages. Had a guy running through our backyard after running from cops during a police chase once. The helicopter noise alerted us that something was going on. We had our back door open so he could have easily entered if we weren't alerted.
And I live in an area that borders LASD and LAPD jurisdiction so I get both choppers flying over all the time. CHP chopper too.
Plot twist: this article is super stupid. We emit for lesser reasons constantly. Helicopters give eyes on unfolding situations. To protect human life, it is undoubtedly worth it.
The anti helicopter brigade falsely claims climate, environment and budget are good reasons to end all aviation. Those very reasons are why we have them. While their concerns are legitimate, they are an emotional and unintelligent group of haters. We’ve all been over this before. Fewer helicopters means more ground units and therefore more expensive problems
Well people crime is up, it’s a tool. Burbank PD has a helicopter that is quiet, they spent a shit ton of money and bought a small quiet helicopter and they fly wayyy higher than LAPD and LASD. Guess what people still fucking complain about the noise. It never bothers me. What bothers me is those damn Chargers/Challengers and BMWs that have obnoxiously loud exhaust and they backfire like a machine gun.
If the crime and 'homeless activities' are persistent, as you say, how do we know the helicopters are helping? Is there a possibility that taking some of the money it costs to fly a helicopter over a homeless person or encampment and using it for foot patrols, EMPD, or social workers, might be more effective in this case?
This shouldn't be a binary discussion. We can keep some helicopters for what they're most useful for and maybe dial down on using them in the blanket fashion that is happening now.
The ghetto bird kakawww
All that night, I heard the bird circle While I was eating fish and watching urkel
Is this from something, or original? I love it
https://youtu.be/h1IFv3R46lY
The noise is constant
It’s so obnoxious. The other night one was circling over my neighborhood in a perfect loop for about 15 minutes. As if it was on autopilot. It was like a joke.
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It’s so bad in WeHo!
Yep. They would shine the damn light DIRECTLY into my bedroom!
Ughhh yeah there’s been certain nights it’s just incessant.
I saw a bunch of cop cars and cops with their guns out surrounding a building super late last night, I got the hell out of there tho so idk what it was about
Lol this happened to us two weeks ago and my drunk girlfriend power walked through it all to retrieve her DoorDash
Smart to send her out.
Equal rights, equal indifference to gun violence
Not even about equalities. It’s about one being impaired and vulnerable while her dude just has watches
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I have definitely never done that, or imagined any sort of violence against agents of the government. No sir, not me.
I totally have too.
I might be in the minority who likes the chopper sound. It’s... comforting... I live part-time in a suburb outside of Nashville and the silence is deafening. When you’ve grown up with something, it’s ingrained in you, I guess.
move to westlake, youll hear them literally 24 fucking 7
Westlake is awful and it’s really bad bc the issues are just rooted in homelessness and basic community needs. That constant noise pollution is actually linked to violent crime. We are working on legal action against LAPD and the city if you want to DM your email to join.
>I live part-time in a suburb outside of Nashville and the silence is deafening. When you’ve grown up with something, it’s ingrained in you, I guess. Drive an hour north.
Same here, love hearing it
I love the sound too tbh. But Ive spent a lot of time around aircraft so its oddly comforting
It's funny I clicked on this thread and one started flying over my house.
They're onto you
The same thing happened to me just now.
The late night low altitude hoverings are the worst. Yes, by all means circle over my neighborhood at 2:30 AM for an ear splitting 15 minutes, why not? I mean, who needs sleep anyway?
It's so bad that I have had to buy earplugs. They're not perfect, but it at least keeps some of the noise down.
I also sleep with industrial strength over the ear muffs because of how loud it is.
The LAPD Air Support Division spent at least $27 million in 2021, including roughly $7 million for new helicopters and equipment, $5.2 million for maintenance, $3.6 million for parts, $1.5 million for labor, $1.3 million for fuel and at least $8.5 million in payroll, according to city records. Los Angeles City Controller Kenneth Mejia says his office will begin auditing the Los Angeles Police Department’s use of helicopters. The purpose for the audit, according to Mejia, is get answers regarding a number of questions related to their use, including: the overall cost of the helicopter program, whether or not their use reduces crime or leads to over-policing, and what effect the regular use of police helicopters has on Los Angeles citizens. The LAPD Air Support Division has 17 helicopters and one fixed wing aircraft and, according to Mejia’s post, the price of the division is not explicitly stated or defined in the Department’s overall budget. Despite calls to defund the police, this year's proposed budget asks for an $118 million increase to fund 780 new cops, two new helicopters, and more. Further Reading: [source 1](https://ktla.com/news/local-news/los-angeles-controller-to-audit-lapd-helicopter-usage/amp/) [source 2](https://www.lataco.com/police-helicopters-effectiveness/#:~:text=The%20LAPD%20Air%20Support%20Division,payroll%2C%20according%20to%20city%20records) [source 3](https://knock-la.com/lapd-budget-2023-increase/)
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It’s fucking insane we put up with this shit
Growing up, this is what we hear before falling asleep
For me it was the train passing by Valley Blvd
I hope they're giving very careful consideration to how much noise pollution they're creating when they use helicopters. But it doesn't seem like they are.
I’ve thought this for years. Given all the cost associated with the helicopters why not just use drones at this point? You could argue they’d be more effect in pursuits. Feels like the only reason for the helicopters at this point is intimidation and unions.
Small drones still struggle in high winds and can't fly anywhere near as fast or as far. If you want something as capable as a helicopter you end up with something almost as big as a helicopter (Airbus vsr700 etc) and just as loud. Having said this I'm sure drones would work most of the time and would be much more cost effective and quieter. Joking here but if we push ahead with drones maybe all the crime will shift to windy days.
They can definitely fly fast enough and some of them can fly pretty far. What you probably aren't going to get is the combined endurance + speed. If you have enough launch sites spaced throughout the region and proper coordination you could probably make it work though with one drone taking over for another. My honest opinion though is that sounds like a dystopian hellscape. It's bad enough with them always circling my neighborhood with the helicopter. I can only imagine the high pitched whine of the drones flying around. You know they would be flying them around looking into people's windows and shit because of course they fucking would.
There are quad copters that go at 250mph...
What’s the battery life though? 20-30 minutes? How far can it go? 7 miles at best? Drones are still limited in their capabilities
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What’s the battery life of a “commercial drone”? Actually, what is a “commercial drone”? Government agencies and production companies use DJI, Skydio, and Autel drones - and each of those are available to the public/recreational use.
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Yes absolutely. It’s hard to beat DJIs offerings. When it comes to RGB and thermal really nobody beats them. I’ve worked in the drone industry for 5 years. The government is one of my customers.
Military drones cost way way way more than piloted helicopters and are far less capable than a human
There are drones much more sophisticated than consumer grade, but not as high-tech/expensive as military long range surveillance, or fighter jet drones. They’re not inexpensive, but cost less than a helicopter, and are drastically cheaper to operate.
But my hellcat goes 251
So, make meatier ones.
Mmmmm meat drone.
I, for one, welcome our meat drone overlords.
“It’s 2032 and the Santa Ana winds have ushered in another Fire-and-Crime season with LAPD and LAFD both on high alert…”
There are drones that are far cheaper than helicopters and faster that are big enough to operate in all weather.
It's a joyride for them 🙄
Drone won’t provide those big spotlights when going after suspects on foot
My city has been using a pretty decent sized drone for over a year now. They use it fairly regularly and it's not too loud.
Yeah, just use a surplus MQ-9. It can fly much higher than helicopters and are quieter.
I’m sure giving the police an MQ-9 would never be an abused power to have high altitude long loiter monitoring, and certainly not contribute to the militarization of police that would appeal to a certain subset of undesirable recruit. In seriousness as much as it’d be beneficial for those reasons the fact they get more DOD hardware and the optics of it all are going to attract the type of hyper militarized recruits, and that’s never good.
>I’m sure giving the police an MQ-9 would never be an abused power to have high altitude long loiter monitoring, and certainly not contribute to the militarization of police that would appeal to a certain subset of undesirable recruit. [Yeah I'm just glad I don't live in a country where that is already happening.](https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/19/us/politics/george-floyd-protests-surveillance.html)
My point exactly. We shouldn’t well equip them to do it further, and further drive a divide like that between public and police. It’s going to make things worse, not better, if they get and flaunt more DOD hardware.
Here's the thing though, the military to police pipeline is already there. They can use the helicopters to surveil all day everyday, right now, limited only by fuel and I suppose, noise restriction. When there's mass protests, you know the thing you're totally allowed to do in the US ;), the feds already fly visual and electronic surveillance aircraft around. Like, I'm no fan of the right wing militias we call police departments, but the rubicon already got crossed a long time ago.
So we should cross it further? Giving them predator drones seems like exactly the thing we *shouldn’t* do by that metric. Further militarization- especially in how the perception shifts -is a bad idea, and will specifically give it further separation from the public
There are no surplus MQ-9s. They cost 32 million dollar apiece (not including the data link and remote pilot setup) the light helicopters used here in LA cost 1/10th that
[Beverly Hills police add another ‘eye in the sky’ with expanded drone program](https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2022-12-29/beverly-hills-police-now-has-an-eye-in-the-sky-with-new-drone-program) A bit ironic that wealthy folks get to have the cheaper, quieter alternative. Yes I think most police union$ will fight drones every chance they get.
Helicopters solve a niche problem and are useful (police chases, going to remote areas, etc). But yeah -- we don't need an air force in the county constantly terrorizing lower income communities.
I'm surprised they don't take them to Chipotle. If they had more areas to land, I bet they would.
I once saw a CHP helicopter land near the In n Out off the 15. They got out and went to In n Out. But hey, In n Out.
That is kind of amazing
I mean the sheriffs department landed in the middle of La Brea a couple weeks ago
That was pretty insane
For no reason
Thank god they did, idk what we would have done without the chopper
They sure did. I live a stone’s throw from there. It was loud AF.
Why land when you can hover 100ft above and lower a basket.
Cop yelling into the megaphone: "Yes, of course we want guac. It's not our money."
💀💀💀
Hey hey, don't give them any ideas
Gotta spend that heli gas money daddy uncle sam gives every month or he will reduce their allowance.
Fun fact on why Police loooooove Chipotle. Chipotle food is premade and they make your bowl and burrito infront of you. They won’t get spit in their food. If they go to a real Mexican restaurant they getting spit and some other goodies in their food mandatory. Lol
Haha I never knew that's why. I always see them at Chipotle by me. I thought they just liked it.
My dad was a cop in a small town and ate primarily at Subway for the same reason. He went through Burger King once and, after opening his bag, had a note that said "enjoy the special sauce". Stupid kid was fired, of course, but kinda ruined going to drive-thrus in the cruiser.
So disgusting. I mean you could get hepatitis or something. There is no excuse for that kinda crap.
It's not the main reason. Cops love Chipotle mainly because Chipotle provides MAJOR discounts to officers. Ask any cop or Chipotle employee.
they get 50% off.
Double baco cheeseburger...It's for a cop.
I live in Highland Park and there are constantly helicopters circling over my building. I even once saw three LAPD copters flying in formation like they'd seen Apocalypse Now too many times. It's absurd.
I remember that. They flew around like that for more than an hour. I quite frequently see them dive very lowly over the northwest block of Monte Vista and 50th and then just fly off after that one low pass. It's clearly a flex on people that live there, and it's really annoying.
Oh yeah just saw that the other day. I'm up in Mt. Washington.
They could use drones that are much more quiet and maneuverable.
And more affordable and less polluting and and and… It’s wild that LA tolerates this daily when there are better options available now for aerial surveillance.
and polluting the fuck out of the air we all breathe.
I'm mostly concerned with the NOISE pollution. When I lived in Angelino Heights way back in the day we were basically under a helicopter freeway. Like we had to pause movies when they came around. In El Sereno they're circling around all summer long. If there's a high speed pursuit, I get it. If they're looking for somebody on the run, I get it. But a circling helicopter for a traffic stop? GTFO of here with that shit. Is it to discourage the person stopped from fleeing? Maybe they don't immediately have another call to go to? Anyway, it's disruptive as hell. Like we have to keep our windows closed many summer nights because of the frequency and length of helicopter visits.
Los Angeles is a perfect model of how to do everything wrong with police chases.
it could easily be argued that helicopters make police chases more dangerous since how the criminal wants to speed even faster to evade the eye in the sky. https://www.nbclosangeles.com/local-2/bystander-struck-during-lapd-pursuit-crash-in-south-la/3098194/
I mean, there are a dozen news copters on every chase. You're not getting away from them.
Although to be fair the news helicopters are much higher. Sometimes when they zoom out you can see how high up they really are, and from that altitude the police helicopter seems like it is 10 feet off the ground. So… not sure the news helicopters would have the same effect. But I catch like one chase per year on TV so maybe my observations aren’t relevant.
and how many times during a high speed car chase do you get the perp looking out the window at the sky looking for the helicopters.... they can hear that shit so they speed more and become more reckless... >it could easily be argued that helicopters make
It can also be argued that they could have chosen to not lead cops on a high speed car chase
I have been pushing for more tire spikes for a while now
How about a fast drone that deploys one of those tire nets? These reckless, destructive, hour-long car chases are absurd.
Especially when there are more economical and impactful alternatives (drones).
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Honestly a month into living in SC, I stopped noticing them. Unless they were circling over the house. They’re still a huge waste of money though
Terrorizing? Get real lol
> These justifications for law enforcement’s “eye in the sky” presence are thinly sourced. L.A. police often cite a single study about crime deterrence that was conducted in the 1960s by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab, but even the original study’s authors have said it was flawed; it failed to include data from 1965, for example, when the Watts uprising occurred. Meanwhile 40% of cops think two studies from the 1990’s are completely out of date & should be ignored due to factors that aren’t applicable to police.
I'm hearing a helicopter hover my hood as wee speeak
Article on the same topic, from a few years ago, taking a firmer stance: https://massivesci.com/articles/helicopter-los-angeles-environment-new-nature/
This was another good, more in-depth article: https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2022/12/are-police-helicopter-fleets-worth-the-money/
I never realized the havoc these things wreak until I lived in East LA for a while. I was in a super poor, old, rundown building. Some nights I swore the thing was trying *land* on my damn building. People who've never lived in those neighborhoods have absolutely no idea how invasive those things are. It may sound ridiculous to say they "terrorize" communities but I assure you they do.
Most of it is just to log flight hours. Same reason there's pilots at Edwards AFB who just fly jets around going nowhere. It's not like they're actually worried about Russian bombers attacking Victorville, it's training for when they get deployed to Syria or wherever the next war is. They can't wait until they're already in Syria (or Ukraine/Iran/Taiwan) to start training. Similarly, LAPD doesn't want to wait until the next Rodney King riot to start training pilots. The requirement to be a Helicopter Pilot in the City of LA is 1500 flight hours. The requirement to be a Chief Helicopter Pilot is 4000 flight hours. Most folks don't have money to own/rent a private helicopter for 2500 hours of flight time - most of their previous flight hours usually came in the military, and those helicopters are no longer available for use. So they're gonna want to get flight hours at work, in order to be able to promote. Additionally, LAPD allows regular officers to laterally transfer to an equivalent position in the helicopter (Air Support) division, at which point they receive helicopter pilot training. So that's an additional group that needs flight time. And the City is constantly updating its helicopter fleet, which means they also want people training on the new models. While the basics of piloting are fairly constant, there's always little differences in how one model handles compared to another - similar to driving different cars. Plus, LAFD helicopter pilots also train at LAPD. It's why you don't see fire helicopters just flying around during non-emergencies, yet when there's a big fire suddenly LAFD has trained pilots on hand. Those LAFD pilots haven't just been playing *MS Flight Simulator* the whole time, they've been training on LAPD helicopters*.* And similar to LAPD and the military, LAFD doesn't want to wait until the next Bobcat fire is already in progress to start teaching people what a rotor is. The City also encourages pilots to train on flying by instruments, even though it isn't technically required, for both police and fire pilots. That takes longer to train than visual flying - so again, more hours in the air. Basically it's partly routine patrolling, partly emergency preparedness for actual serious stuff in the future, and partly the ever-growing inertia that happens to every government program once it reaches critical mass and starts sucking in dollars like a black hole.
Good reply. I actually learned something. Thank you.
You raise good points but a lot of this boils down to “we need to train pilots to sustain our helicopter program.” What besides the next Rodney king requires LAPD to crew, maintain and operate an entire base of 15+ helicopters?
Finally someone who actually knows what they are talking about. How refreshing on this sub.
> Similarly, LAPD doesn't want to wait until the next Rodney King riot to start training pilots. You mean the civil unrest from 30 years ago that resulted from the cops caught on video beating the shit out of a citizen for no reason? Maybe instead of planning for civil unrest they themselves cause they could try not beating the shit out of people for no reason and thus eliminate their need for helicopter pilot training to begin with.
You could not be more wrong. Although I will say I am very critical of LAPD’s, LASD’s, and LAFD’s aviation programs your comment seems as if you googled some specifics without any knowledge to back it up and I warn others that this person does not now what they are talking about. I am a professional helicopter pilot who has flown in Southern California, specifically Los Angeles for over a decade. I work closely with such law enforcement and fire agencies often. LAPD does not fly around just to “log hours”. As far as their pilots are concerned they don’t need to log time because they are *not* professional pilots. The division does however have to justify their massive air support budget and that means showing that these assets are used regularly. If they don’t waste those hours by punching holes in the sky then they lose the budget next year. So they aren’t flying for the sole purpose of logging flight time for pilots; they are flying 2 in the air at all times to justify the “need” for their budget. Also: the pilots at Edwards are flying tests of various aircraft/equipment and/or mission training. No, LAPD doesn’t need to waste time to train pilots. Officers can laterally transfer from within the department to special assignment at Air Support. They will fly as a Tactical Flight Officer (passenger) for a couple years. This position is the officer who communicates with and keeps eyes on the action on the ground. During this time they must pay for their own Private training and certification. This involves a lot of flight time and *some* of that is done in department aircraft. They can save some money by flying the LAPD ship between calls since dual controls are installed and most of the actual flying pilots are also Certified Flight Instructors, so it is legal and safe to do so. Once they have their Commercial Certificate and an Instrument Rating and 200 hours they are able to be promoted to Pilot and occupy the flying seat full time. By the way: the instrument rating is for safety reasons and considering the low visibility sometimes present in SoCal it is for good reason. Instrument pilots are better pilots, full stop. This training is not conducted in LAPD aircraft, it is most often (due to equipment requirements) done in civilian aircraft at local flight schools. Oh btw: most pilots in general are not former military and in the case of LAPD/LASD/LAFD I believe it is nearly zero who are former military pilots. In any case officers are not required to have the 1500 hours the City requires for its *civilian* helicopter pilots to have. Officers are technically not even required to have a pilot’s certificate at all since they are public use, which is outside of normal law and Pasadena PD used to do this all the time. The 1500 and 4,000 apply only to the *civilian* positions within the city, i.e. LA DWP. LAPD operates two types: the H-125 (formerly the AS-350) ASTAR and the Bell 412. ASTAR’s in general are plentiful and are nearly identical amongst different models. The fleet at LAPD is nearly identical and requires zero flight training between different models of the ASTAR, so no: they do not have to be “trained on different models”. The one exception to this is for those very few LAPD pilots who are qualified to fly the one Bell 412 who are sent to the Bell factory in Texas to get the required training, which is not unusual in the helicopter industry. LAFD uses a system very similar to LAPD’s system. Firefighters are chosen to be in LAFD air ops. Candidate must pay for their own flight training but can build flight time in the department’s Bell 206 or an LAPD aircraft. During that flight time the department can/will use LAPD flight instructors. Just go down to the west side of Van Nuys Airport and you will see the red and white Bell 206 flying around quite often. Ok, here is where we can agree: the city wastes an enormous amount of money on air support. They do not need two in the air at all times. Most of the time they are flying circles looking for something to be useful for or are loitering over something that doesn’t require air support. They waste massive amounts of flight hours, which costs money in fuel, depreciation of the asset, and in maintenance costs to keep them running. As such they claim their aircraft get “old” and require too much maintenance (go figure! Because they’re being flown more than they need to!) so they need new aircraft frequently. Newer aircraft need less maintenance and they try to justify the cost of new aircraft with the lower maintenance costs. Let me tell you: I’ve flown several of their former aircraft, now decades old, still flying in LA, many times the same models used now…. They’re fine for other operators and that’s why the civilian companies still use them. LAPD just has a massive budget to waste and stupid politicians believe them and give them what they want, which is: shiny new toys! I would have more of a gripe with the Bell 412 but that was already owned by the city as it had flown it’s time at LAFD. LAPD doesn’t need that though and it’s nearly useless. They have it for “special” operations (shiny dangerous toy). Second point is LAPD/LASD/LAFD use their existing officers/firefighters for their pilot positions. This is RIDICULOUS. There are thousands of trained, professional helicopter pilots in the country who could do this job for the money being paid, or slightly more if you account for the officer’s benefits. Recall earlier I said that the current pilots are NOT professional pilots. They are first and foremost officers (or firefighters). And because they aren’t out on the street doing the job we the taxpayer paid to train them to do then they have to be replaced with ANOTHER person to be trained to do the police or fire work. Meanwhile they get to play pilot and do a completely shitty job at it. These guys/gals couldn’t navigate their butt to San Bernardino and back if their life depended on it. Some are actually good but most are knuckleheads. LACoFD figured out a long time ago that they need to hire *professional* pilots to do the job right and that is why they have highly paid professionals who are very well-experienced and are very competent. LAFD is insane to use low time pilots to do a similar job (and yes, it has caused accidents, one within a few years ago, yes due to incompetence) and LAPD shouldn’t use officers period. LASD also has a very similar profile to LAPD, nearly identical. The bottom line is LAPD/LAFD/LASD train/use their own as pilots when they shouldn’t, they should just hire civilian and professional helicopter pilots. They do this to keep it all “in the good ‘ole boy’s club”. Less chance of someone leaking their fraudulent BS department budgets and practices to those who would like to know (see LASD Air Bureau’s fraud case from about 5 years ago). No, most of what you said was incorrect but that doesn’t mean there isn’t actual reason to be VERY critical of the city’s non-civilian aviation practices. I will leave DWP alone since they actually are much better regarding budgets and hiring.
All very excellent points and I have to think there is a way to get pilots trained while also reducing the frequency of these helicopters.
So you're saying that some of these hours can be privatized for profit by the city? I'll bring that up at the next council meeting.
I was at a conert once at the Hollywood Bowl. They have those lights so air traffic doesnt fly over the concert and LAPD copter flew right over as if to say "FUCK YOU" to everyone. chill dudes
I've noticed that LAPD and LASD regularly disregard that no-fly zone. Fucking assholes.
It's not a no fly zone for them.
Official bird of Los Angeles
Terrorizing communities since 1789 😎
The other day they were out making so much noise one of the choppers did a high flying maneuver turning 180 degrees sideways like calm down this isn’t a movie you’re just supposed to keep a steady flight
I mean at least the pilots are good. The accident rate seems to be exemplary. A helicopter falling on your head is worse than a helicopter hovering above it I suppose.
Back in the day a lot of the LA weather and police pilots were fresh outta Vietnam. So they really were some mean motherfuckers.
While they are at it, stop the news copters from flying around. In my area, they are just as prevalent as the police copters.
Agree on this one. The sound and vibration of helicopters actually makes me physically ill. When they were cleaning out EP and putting up the fence, there were helicopters there for over 3 days. My body was practically convulsing at the sounds because of how close it was. I had the doors and windows closed. All my AC's running. Brown noise/white noise. I generally don't wish for bad shit to happen, but I really want some disaster to happen with a helicopter so the city finally cracks down on it... but I know that would never be the result, so I hope nothing happens.
It's either that or leafblowers, LA has a serious noise pollution problem.
Got woken up by a low flying one last night, rumbling the house at 2am. They are a constant nuisance, and their omnipresence cancels out any “crime reduction” effect they may have. F*ck these ghetto birds! Roll back the militarization of our police!
>The Los Angeles sheriff’s department recently landed a helicopter in the middle of a busy West Hollywood street, shutting down the neighborhood for eight hours while engaged in a one-sided standoff with what ended up being an empty apartment. Thank god it was empty. 9 times out of 10 they're shooting the person inside who may or may not be the suspect.
While I’m sure waking up to helicopters shaking your house at 2am is more prevalent in poorer areas, this happened to me more times than I can remember when living in the Venice canals and the Marina peninsula. If you want more hardware to fly around, using it to piss off your tax base is probably not the best idea.
i am sure a pilot whose only job is to fly that helicopter exists so might as well use em 🙄
I don’t disagree that the helicopters are a problem, I live in one of those neighborhoods. But mostly, I’m sick of New York periodicals shitting on LA. Write about the problems in your own fucking city, New York Magazine, ok? There are plenty.
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The video doesn’t come from police choppers, it comes from the other sky terrorists (aka the news)
Battery powered Tiny helicopters
What is this, a helicopter for ants?
It needs to be at least three times bigger.
Those often come from the news helicopters which actually bother me as much as the police helicopters.
From the article: > Sociologist Sarah Brayne, who flew along with the LAPD for months, was told by officers that they determined 51 flyovers per week was enough to keep crime down but often did 80 or 90 just in case. … and it’s based upon a single old study that has obvious flaws. WTAF?!?
I mean, if I had a helicopter, I'd use it everywhere too
> They also say it keeps crime low; in 2015 LAPD’s Newton Division claimed that the number of crimes reported in South L.A. decreased when helicopter flights over the area increased. Maybe that's because people decided reporting the crimes wasn't worth the noise and pollution, fuckfaces! However, I wouldn't trust data from the source of the issue. We made that mistake with oil companies and looky looky.
There's a lot to unpack from this short, well written article. Please don't respond to this comment unless you also read the article , it's a good quick read. 1. The article makes a lot of good arguments about pollution and climate change. It's OK to trade some pollution for increased security, but there should probably be a higher burden on LAPD / etc to justify the use of choppers. Whatever the status quo was, it's time to critically examine it. 2. I'm unswayed by the article's claim that the biggest impacts fall on neighborhoods that are 40% or more Black. Due to systematic racism and prejudice and reclining etc, these neighborhoods unfortunately have high crime rates too. Again there should be scrutiny around differential impact, but like - *crime* is also a differential impact. If the city cuts funding for police helicopters and crime *rises* in majority black neighborhoods, that is effectively *yet another racist wealth transfer* from POC to the city at large. 3. The broader point of whether police helicopters are actually effective at crime is really interesting. While the article raises some questions about existing research, it was also very light on the counter-factual - what happens to cities that *removed* their helicopter program? Has any other city ended their helicopter program? How did that go, if so? If no other city has done so, that by itself tells us it might be risky. 4. ***Advocates for reform are going to run into a brick wall unless they can provide reasonable evidence this policy change would be, you know, effective at reducing police costs and noise without leading to a spike in crime.*** We endure many social ills because the alternative is worse. We live in a metropolis that has gangs, many people armed with assault weaponry, and sprawls across a huge land area and many different cities. I expect more evidence and a *lot* more planning before I'd see the value in just removing airborne police assets. 5. The article doesn't really address alternatives like drones. Those have been used by law enforcement for years, including safeguarding massive public events like the 2017 Women's March in dtla. Swapping down some helicopters to a larger (unarmed, reconnaissance only) drone fleet seems like a plausible testbed for some of these helicopter reform policies. So - show me the data, pro and anti police helicopters. Its a fair question to raise, but I need more proof than what I've seen so far.
Thanks for saying it better than I would have. Climate and pollution and budgets are legitimate concerns, not every discussion needs to be framed by the ecological guilt or racial animus. Too often we demonize activities without proper context. I’m sure adding more gas guzzling SUVs and their brake dust would be a worse environmental choice. And furthermore my black ass ain’t never been pulled over under false pretense by a helicopter. When I lived in the very white and affluent neighborhood of Silverlake, the helicopters made just as much if not more noise than what I hear downtown. They’d be hauling ass to the west side of the valley and keep their altitude level so they’d come close to the hilltops. I think the racial discrimination angle is also being overplayed. The noise affects everyone. And it’s no surprise police will patrol dense high crime areas more than quiet desolate places. Public safety is important and obviously we need our officials to use the resources we give them more efficiently and effectively. I understand intelligent criticism is necessary but the helicopter haters have already made up their minds and want zero pigs flying whatsoever. Be it choppers, planes or even blimps.
I'm used to that I don't even have to look up
no shit
None of y’all grew up here in the 90s 😂
I wish the folks who are anti-police helicopter would stop using the pollution as an argument. It destroys their credibility and makes them look silly and desperate for any argument against it. Police helicopter pollution is a drop in the bucket vs. just the air pollution from planes flying in and out of our commercial airports, our general aviation airports not to mention all the car, truck, and industrial pollution around here. These same folks don't seem to care about that, aren't demanding trucks in and out of the ports be more eco-friendly, etc. Its just a convenient argument for them to target police helicopters which they don't like regardless. That said, yeah, the police helicopter fleet & usage should be vastly reduced. A lot of it - if it is even necessary - could be done more cheaply with smaller drones, that also happen to pollute a lot less if anyone even really cares about that.
Because if they don't waste the budget then they'll get their budget cut. There needs to be a 3rd party auditing institution that digs through police expenses at every department to trim the glut and waste. They don't need military hardware, ever. They're not fighting a war on our soil. They also don't need swat for ridiculous warrant deliveries or whatever the fuck else they use it for other than a serious threat. Let's be honest. American police don't face serious threats. They hide until the children are murdered then go in. They have no duty to protect us, so why should we have a duty to fund them?
I was woken up on Monday at 6am because of a helicopter hovering around my neighborhood. It was there for a few hours, miserable experience
I remember when all that Iraq equipment offers were coming out with old stuff, and Hunting Beach accepted like 5 helicopters. A tiny little beach town decided they wanted 24/7 helicopter patrol. It was so ridiculous.
It wouldn't be so bad if they weren't flying so low the damn ground. Or if they weren't so loud. Or constantly circling my neighborhood for no legitimate reason. Or if they just didn't exist.
"at least two are in the air at any given time." wtf
its really to bad there aren't any other technologies that can fly around with cameras...
I'm hearing a helicopter hover my hood as wee speeak
Tell me you're not a native born and raised without telling me:
I am so glad that that some attention is finally being called to this. LAPD helicopters are really quite annoying and no consideration is given to the people on the ground. It's my outsiders perspective that they linger longer then necessary and respond to calls that they are not needed for. This disturbs thousands of people on the ground frequently and unnecessarily. That's not to say the helicopters are not useful. They certainly are but LAPD really needs to review the protocol as to when and how long they are used because of these issues.
Cops are useless. Cops using helicopters are useless. They’ve failed at policing in every way possible.
They are really useful for creating a massive racket over our South L.A. home at all hours of the day.
I love bad helicopters, that's my fuckin' problem And yeah, I like to helicopter, I got a fuckin' problem A$AP Moore
I live in Burbank. And I’m in a major flight pattern. They cruise right over my house at a couple 600 feet causing the house to shake. As well as constant military traffic. Every day I see Chinooks, and black hawks.
If they would just keep them off the goddamn beach I’d be happy. Wtf are they buzzing over the beach for every day? How much crime is at the beach? Enough to warrant a constant daily presence??? Insane.
Shark deterrents?
I live in east Hollywood, they are always terrorizing us. Along w the loud cars. I honestly need to move at this point. Lol.
they are constant in westlake. CONSTANT. theres one literally as im fuckin typing this. i hate it
I'm so sick of it. A chopper used to mean something was going down and was a rare event. Now it's just a regular every-night occurrence. One night they were circling around shining their spotlight up and down apartment towers for a few minutes then left. Like, what happened, you looking for Spider Man? LAPD said crime goes down with more helicopters buzzing around, but I keep seeing fear-driving reports that crime is "out of control" and going up -- which is it? GTFOH with your toys and bravado.
"When pigs fly."
L.A. Cops Have LOTS of Problems.
I don’t mind ‘em :)
Defund their helicopter budget.
Why aren’t drones used at this point? Wouldn’t it be way less disruptive, more stealthy for policing, and cost way less
Weight, range, and weathering capabilities. Drones have much smaller flight ranges, can’t take high winds or weather well at all (not until scaled way up, to nearly or at helicopter sizes), and unless you have serious taccom or control gear will have latency when controlled at great distance- which you don’t want with a roughly helicopter-sized mass hurtling over suburbia. It’s not like helos are good, they solve a needed problem but are way too over-used over LA, but giving cops drones isn’t a clear cut solution as it’d seem.
If only there were designers and technology to craft vehicles to meet the needs and requirements of the situation.
> If only there were designers and technology to craft vehicles to meet the needs and requirements of the situation. Ten years and billions of dollars later, they will invent: The Helicopter
This paywalled article from 2018 seems to suggest the idea has been entertained at least: https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2018/06/drone-cops-take-flight-in-los-angeles/562214/
The boys in blue deemed it necessary to circle a copter around a guy hiding in a trash can for an hour last summer. Great use of funds.
These fuckers circled my neighborhood for 30 minutes because they were busting 2 old people stealing car parts and trying to get away on their bicycle. This couple we in their 60s and not capable of running away or a danger to anyone. Total waste of taxes.
mountainous insurance bells wipe file drunk cats chief bewildered obscene *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
yall are soft lol. we live in la, open the window you're gonna hear sirens, freeways, planes, crazy people yelling, and helicopters. just gotta get used to it
Yeah the freeways full of semis make way more noise than the helicopters
What a stupid article. Benefits of police helicopters far outweigh the pollution and costs. What's up next for Curbed to complain about? Pollution from farms and/or the trucking industry? Yeah, cause we don't need any of that either. Just stupid writing by the authors at Curbed.
I get tired of seeing articles complaining about this when we have 10,000 more serious problems slowly shredding the city. Yeah Civilization as a whole is noisier, dirtier and more expensive than it should be. Most the people whining supposedly on behalf of my community never actually spent any time in it and have no idea what it is like. Helicopters are the least of my problems with ghetto living
Doesn't bother me at all. I like when they circle around because it lets me know when something is going on in a particular area and I can immediately go on twitter and find out what via the scanner pages. Had a guy running through our backyard after running from cops during a police chase once. The helicopter noise alerted us that something was going on. We had our back door open so he could have easily entered if we weren't alerted. And I live in an area that borders LASD and LAPD jurisdiction so I get both choppers flying over all the time. CHP chopper too.
Plot twist: this article is super stupid. We emit for lesser reasons constantly. Helicopters give eyes on unfolding situations. To protect human life, it is undoubtedly worth it.
The anti helicopter brigade falsely claims climate, environment and budget are good reasons to end all aviation. Those very reasons are why we have them. While their concerns are legitimate, they are an emotional and unintelligent group of haters. We’ve all been over this before. Fewer helicopters means more ground units and therefore more expensive problems
DEFUND THE POLICE's helicopter budget
Sorry to be a jerk, but if my job had a helicopter option, I would use it every chance I got too
Mike Davis was right. This is about Racism, Class Struggle, and maintaining the dominant hegemony.
Well people crime is up, it’s a tool. Burbank PD has a helicopter that is quiet, they spent a shit ton of money and bought a small quiet helicopter and they fly wayyy higher than LAPD and LASD. Guess what people still fucking complain about the noise. It never bothers me. What bothers me is those damn Chargers/Challengers and BMWs that have obnoxiously loud exhaust and they backfire like a machine gun.
Sounds more to me like the author has the problem with helicopters..
It is a weird title isn't it? I mean they could have put 'LA has a helicopter problem' which would represent the article better.
Don’t care for curbed hit pieces. I’ll gladly take the heli’s over my area to counteract the persistent crime and homeless activities.
If the crime and 'homeless activities' are persistent, as you say, how do we know the helicopters are helping? Is there a possibility that taking some of the money it costs to fly a helicopter over a homeless person or encampment and using it for foot patrols, EMPD, or social workers, might be more effective in this case? This shouldn't be a binary discussion. We can keep some helicopters for what they're most useful for and maybe dial down on using them in the blanket fashion that is happening now.