A police drone program in Berkshire County's largest community is at the center of debate over surveillance, privacy, and civil rights. As Berkshire Bureau Chief Josh Landes reports, the controversy around the police department in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, underscores the tension between the local and federal governments.
On Sept. 8, the Pittsfield Police Department brought a request to the City Council to accept a $31,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Justice to buy two new drones.
The fine print of the paperwork to receive the money caught the eye of local activists, who flocked to the meeting to speak against it.
During public comment, Pittsfielder Kamaar Taliaferro told the council that some provisions of the federal grant conflict with the PROTECT Act, which Gov. Maura Healey signed into law last month.
“That's the state law that's seeking to protect our immigrant neighbors from the disappearing machine that has become the [Department of Homeland Security],"
Taliaferro said. "Of particular concern is that it might give license to Pittsfield police officers to engage in activities that they think are required under this grant, but that put the city of Pittsfield in a position of liability because it may violate state law.”
Those provisions include requiring local law enforcement to report directly to DHS and granting permission for federal officers to “have power without warrant ... to interrogate any alien or person believed to be an alien as to his right to be or to remain in the United States.”
A national poll by UMass-Amherst released this spring shows that Americans overwhelmingly disapprove of the Trump administration’s aggressive immigration policies, with just one-third of respondents supporting how U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement have carried out deportation raids.
In Berkshire County, raids during which masked agents have removed residents with heavy-handed tactics since 2025 have left the community wary of the federal government.
At-large Councilor Alisa Costa said the grant and its terms stank of something nefarious.
“It feels like a backdoor way to try to get the city of Pittsfield to comply with what the federal government wants us to do, which is to support their efforts with ICE and rounding up people," Costa said.
Pittsfield Police Chief Marc Maddelana admitted he hadn’t consulted the city solicitor about the terms of the grant, but said he didn’t think they threatened either state law or local residents.
“My position on this would be that we still adhere to state law, which does not allow us to work with ICE in regards to any enforcement actions that they have in our city or town," Maddelana said. "It is a federally funded grant, which I understand that, and as a result of the fact that it is federally funded, and there are certain aspects of the grant that we would have to adhere to, but we cannot be compelled, as the state attorney has said in the past, we cannot be compelled by the federal government to act against state law.”
Also of concern has been the PPD demoing technology from video surveillance company LiveView for the last nine months without the approval of the council.
That revelation lost the support of Councilor Cam Cunningham, who had stumped for the department for most of the meeting to that point.
“Chapter 18 and-a-half states ‘acquiring or borrowing new surveillance technology.’ That means you guys using this actively is in violation of city code," Cunningham said. "That right there loses my support. I can't argue. Let's trust them when you're not following the rules the council has set.”
The council ultimately tanked the grant in a 9-2 vote, closing the window on the city’s only opportunity to accept it.
WAMC visited the PPD after the contentious meeting to examine the drones that currently make up the force’s fleet. The program began in 2024 with just four devices, and has now grown to eleven.
Officer James Sena is one of three members of the department certified to pilot the consumer-grade tech, all of which come from the Chinese tech company DJI and are included in the PPD’s equipment budget line item.
“If we have issue where we maybe have a barricaded subject that we need to get eyes on inside a house, instead of sending an officer in there, or instead of, you know, sending someone close, we'll maybe send in one of our Avada 2s or the Neo that we have that can then fly in, get a sight on, make sure they don't have any weapons or anything that's going to harm themselves or us, and then we can push resources up to that individual and help them out," Sena said.
The drones do not have the automatic license plate reader or facial recognition technology that have caused similar debates about privacy and police overreach. Sena stresses that the drones rarely record what they observe, and police require search warrants to use them for investigations. He cited a situation where a drone was crucial to a search for a man with Alzheimer's who wandered away from his home, expediting a foot search that would have taken much longer.
“We do not use these this equipment for a general surveillance, right? If there is surveillance at all being done with these is targeted or surveillance that is brought to us by the investigating officer or the investigating entity, where there's already probable cause or reasonable suspicion that criminal activity is going on, and at that point is targeted surveillance is not — we're not flying over Pittsfield just randomly trying to find anything, and everything is conducted with a purpose and with due diligence,” Sena said.
Chief Maddalena says he’s working with the city to ensure police use of drones is in line with municipal ordinance. He notes that other law enforcement agencies like the Massachusetts State Police also already use the tech in Berkshire County, and that the PPD has publicized its use of drones since 2024.
“Technology is here," he said. "Technology is part of law enforcement. Law enforcement is changing, just like every other industry out there in regards to how it's forward with technology, and this is a big part of it. And you know we shouldn't be afraid of it. The community shouldn't be afraid of it. We should all embrace it because at the end of the day, it's going to make all of us safer. And it's going to - I mean, it already has. It's going to save lives.”
Tuesday night, the Pittsfield City Council advanced a petition by Councilor Cunningham requesting the city submit and publish a report detailing all surveillance technology currently in use, and that the city solicitor weigh in on how the uses either comply or conflict with city ordinances.
Meeting audio was provided by Pittsfield Community Television.
