From above, Miami-Dade police drone recorded crack cocaine sale live. It’s a first, cops say.

Miami-Dade narcotics detectives needed surveillance as they investigated a suspected armed drug dealer believed to be peddling crack cocaine over the fence of his house’s backyard.

But the surveillance didn’t come from a cop hiding in a tree, an unmarked car or a nearby building.

Instead, the eyes came from 3,100 feet above the ground as officers launched a police drone to capture what they say was Andre “Dread” Scott selling cocaine to an undercover informant from the yard of his Northwest Miami-Dade home. The drone footage — approved beforehand by a judge — marks the first time that Miami-Dade police have employed an unmanned aerial vehicle to obtain real-time evidence in a criminal investigation.

The court case comes as Florida lawmakers will again consider a limited expansion on the use of police drones, and as law enforcement agencies across the United States have increased drone purchases amid concerns about intrusions on privacy.

In the Scott case, the drone footage is now evidence as Miami-Dade prosecutors look to convict the 31-year-old on a slew of weapon and drug charges. He remains jailed. Scott’s defense lawyer declined to comment.

Across the country, the use of drones among police, fire departments and government agencies has expanded as the technology has become cheaper..

In 2018, over 900 agencies in the United States, mostly law enforcement, had bought the small aerial vehicles, according to The Center for the Study of the Drone at Bard College. The number will be much higher in a study to be updated in a several weeks, said Dan Gettinger, who studies police use of drones for Bard College.

“Drones could be like body cameras in the future, just another piece of video equipment that’s become widespread,” Gettinger said.

But the dramatic escalation of the futuristic-looking drones — popular with hobbyists, photographers and news media organizations — have also led to fears from civil libertarians, particularly in states where police departments refuse to disclose information about their unmanned aerial vehicle programs.

In Southern California, for example, most police departments in San Diego have refused to disclose details on drone deployments. One city, Chula Vista, has launched a large-scale drone program that it claims completed 1,000 “missions” in one year — and led to 130 arrests.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation, which sued the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration in 2012 over access to information on which police agencies have applied to fly drones, has criticized cops in Northern California for flying drones over protests.

“Drones are really cheap and there is this worry that down the road, police departments might be using them more and more to spy on people,” said David Maass, a senior researcher at EFF.

Most often, authorities and experts say, police drones are used to monitor crowds, watch traffic, aid in search and rescues and document crime and accident scenes.

Cops, of course, have long had their eyes in the sky — with helicopters and airplanes, which are usually outfitted with cameras. And generally, law enforcement agencies don’t need judicial approval to fly planes and helicopters.

But critics say drones are way more invasive.

“Mass-deploying helicopters is prohibitively expensive, but regularly using drones is much more feasible,” New York’s American Civil Liberties Union warned in December 2018 as the city was launching its unnamed aerial vehicle program.

“And, because they are small, they can fly in places helicopters can’t reach, like into a person’s garage or just outside a bedroom window.”

The ACLU warned the drone cameras “can create a chilling effect on people exercising their rights to free speech, protest, and other lawful activities.”

In Florida, state law has long limited the use of a police drone unless it was being used to “prevent imminent danger to life or serious damage to property,” search for a missing person, prevent a terrorist attack or stop the “the imminent escape of a suspect or the destruction of evidence.”

Last year, during the legislative session, Florida lawmakers considered a bill that allows police to use drones to record outdoor crime and traffic scenes, as well as assist in monitoring crowds of 50 people or more, without a warrant.

The House passed the bill unanimously. The bill died in the Senate. Miami Beach House Rep. Michael Grieco, D-Miami Beach, a co-sponsor of the bill, said there were concerns that drones buzzing over gatherings “felt very much like out of the movie Minority Report” and the show of the vehicles “would make people feel as if it would suppress speech.”

Grieco, however, said law enforcement using drones to monitor crowds is no different than stationing officers or cameras in police towers, or using a tethered blimp in public spaces where there is no expectation of privacy — all of which already happen.

“The bill would allow police and fire to use drones in the same way the public can use drones,” Grieco said. “Police officers can’t use drones in public spaces, but any average joe citizen can buy one at the mall kiosk and launch it in the sky legally.”

For the legislative session that began Tuesday, Rep. Clay Yarborough, R-Jacksonville, has again introduced the same bill; Grieco has again signed on as a co-sponsor.

If passed, the law would still require police detectives to secure search warrants for investigations such as the one into Scott.

In all, Miami-Dade police has eight drones. They’ve mostly been used to chronicle crime scenes. Last month, for example, a Miami-Dade judge approved the use of a drone to record the crime scene of two separate outdoor murders in Southwest Miami-Dade.

(State agents also used a judicially approved drone to record the rural Northwest Miami-Dade field where the long-missing remains of murder victim Lynda Meier were discovered in December 2018.)

In the Scott case, county detectives learned that drugs were being sold from a home on the 1100 block of Northwest 118th Street, a residential neighborhood just outside the city of North Miami.

In August, detectives dispatched a confidential informant to buy cocaine from the dealer at the home, according to a search warrant. The informant bought $10 of marijuana from a man over a wooden fence. The man, believed to be Scott because of a tattoo on his face, held a pistol in his hand, police said.

In all, over a couple months, the informant made three marijuana buys and one purchase of crack cocaine from the man believed to be Scott, according to police. That gave detectives enough probable cause to apply for a search warrant for the drone.

On Oct. 8, Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Charles Johnson signed the warrant.

“We wanted to keep that operation as safe as possible because that block was prone to gun violence at the time,” said Miami-Dade Lt. Chris Casiano, of the narcotics bureau. “It was the safest option we had at the time.”

Two days later, as the informant went in for a fifth buy, a Miami-Dade police drone operator launched the vehicle. As officers watched on a live video feed, a “male appearing to be Scott” came out of the house and handed the informant four bags of “hard,” street slang for crack, the warrant said.

The footage, released as part of a public-records request, depicts a man walking in the backyard of the house, appearing to hand something to another man. Scott’s face is not clear in the footage.

A second search warrant was issued. On Oct. 17, detectives raided Scott’s home and found him hiding in a shed of the home. On the property, officers found an illegal short-barrel rifle, a revolver and suspected marijuana, cocaine and ecstasy.

Because of his criminal past, and because he was on probation for an earlier drug case, Scott was charged with possession of a firearm by a convicted felon. He has pleaded not guilty.

Maass, of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, said the use of the drone in this case is not common. He praised the judicial oversight.

“That’s actually a much better ideal for using a drone than what we’re using elsewhere in the country,” Maass said. “At least there’s a level of oversight.”

This story was originally published January 16, 2020 at 6:00 AM.