El Paso, Texas, is a uniquely positioned city - a vast urban center surrounded by desert terrain, military airspace, and an international border with Ciudad Juárez, Mexico. That complexity sometimes brings both challenges and misconceptions, demanding a coordinated and proactive approach to public safety.
With nearly 40 miles of city to cover, and responsibility shared across police, fire, and even airport operations, El Paso needed a faster, flexible solution to respond to emergencies, coordinate across agencies, and ensure community safety.
To meet that challenge, El Paso turned to drone technology. The El Paso Police Department (EPPD) launched its drone program six years ago to enhance public safety operations across the city. As the benefits became clear - and requests from other agencies grew - the program quickly expanded. Today, El Paso operates 22 DJI Docks citywide. With the integration of FlightHub 2 On-Premises, El Paso has transformed how it manages emergencies and coordinates across departments.
Unlocking Speed, Reach, and Awareness
Before adopting DJI Docks, drone operations required manual setup and often took significant time, especially after hours. Response times could stretch to 45 minutes or longer, with officers retrieving gear, driving across town, and setting up equipment on site.
Now, with DJI Docks, that same response can be triggered from a laptop anywhere, reducing response time from an hour to mere minutes.
With drones pre-positioned across the city, teams can launch remotely to gather aerial intelligence and share live feeds with responders en route. That situational awareness helps public safety officers arrive on scene with more clarity, improving safety, coordination, and response times when seconds count.
Moreover, drones are also allowing first responders to focus on higher-priority calls instead of noise disturbances or house parties. “A lot of bad things can happen in two minutes,” says Sgt Balke. With drones, EPPD can get an officer to a priority call two minutes faster while a drone clears the other call.
FlightHub 2 On-Premises: Secure, Scalable, and Mission-Ready
In a sensitive airspace and international border zone, secure data management isn’t optional - it’s mission-critical. With FlightHub 2 On-Premises, deployed under AWS GovCloud with support from Technicalis, El Paso has gained greater command over drone operations while meeting evolving information security requirements.
With this robust, self-hosted drone management solution, agencies can plan and execute drone missions, manage fleets, and handle data collection - all within their own private servers or designated cloud environments. That means every image, coordinate, and flight log stays within their internal network.
FlightHub 2’s intuitive design also supports multi-operator collaboration. One pilot can fly the drone while another focuses on camera controls and data capture, making it easier for teams to gather the insights they need, fast.
A Shared Mission
El Paso’s approach stands out not just for its technology, but for the way it brings agencies together.
From the start, fire, police, and airport teams recognized they were often responding to the same incidents. Instead of building separate drone programs, they chose to coordinate, sharing infrastructure, training, and mission data to maximize public safety impact. This cross-agency collaboration has helped to streamline operations, reduce costs, and deliver better outcomes for residents.
That shared ecosystem is already delivering real value. In one case, a police officer flying a mission downtown needed an electronic observer. A colleague stationed in Atlanta was able to step in remotely, enabling the mission to proceed safely, even from across the country.
Now, that spirit of collaboration is extending even further. El Paso’s drone-as-first-responder (DFR) operations are jointly supported by police, fire, and airport teams, with plans to extend drone access to more departments, including Parks and Recreation, Economic Development, and Streets and Maintenance.
The Future of Citywide Response
El Paso’s approach shows what’s possible when a city embraces drone technology not as a siloed tool, but as a unified, cross-agency platform. From securing borders to supporting community services, drones are enabling El Paso to meet today’s demands - and tomorrow’s - with speed, security, and precision.
At DJI, we’re proud to support the dedicated teams in El Paso and beyond who are pioneering new ways to protect their communities through innovation.
