At 600 feet above Downtown Dallas along Interstate 30, there is one of the busiest airspaces in North Texas.
Marc Tomerlin, assistant chief pilot with the Texas Department of Public Safety’s Aircraft Operations Division, said that between searching for antennas, towers, and other manned aircraft, there is little time left to look out for drones.
“This is the exact situation where we would appreciate some type of alert inside the cockpit to give us, if nothing more than a few seconds’ heads-up, so we could bring the helicopter to a stop, make a 180-degree turnaround, or do something to avoid a mid-air collision,” Tomerlin said.
The Texas DPS is now the first law enforcement agency in the nation to deploy Airborne Counter Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS). The technology, mounted on helicopters, detects drones in the area that may pose a potential threat to public safety or emergency operations.
Sensing radio frequency, the system geolocates hostile or unauthorized drones and their operators.
“You can slew to drones, you can slew to the pilot, where its location is, show breadcrumbs of actually the drone where it’s flown. It will tell you the model of the drone, where the pilot is, the distance from the helicopter, and the speed the drone is going,” Tomerlin said.
Security officials said drones are one of the top threats to the 2026 FIFA World Cup.
This week, FEMA made $625 million in funding available to designated host cities, including Dallas. Part of the funding will go toward unmanned aircraft systems and equipment for detecting and tracking UAS.
“We were the first police department in the United States to receive an FAA licensure to fly in Class B airspace,” said Theron Bowman, a former chief of police in Arlington.
Bowman knows sky-high security. His former department was the first in the country to launch a “Drone as a First Responder” program 15 years ago.
“We envisioned using drones primarily as a force multiplier, being able to put them up in the air to see crowds, to see movement of people walking to and fro, and to really have a better viewpoint of everything that was happening,” Bowman said.
Bowman played a key role in security for the 2011 Super Bowl at AT&T Stadium. He said back then, drones were not a threat.
“If you think of anything that can be launched to damage or endanger a crowd, whether it is a missile or a projectile or some chemical substance or chemical agent,” Bowman said.
Starting in June, AT&T Stadium will host nine World Cup matches, including a semi-final match, the most for any host city. More than 25 local public safety partners, as well as state and federal partners, will help provide security for at least 27 venues and event sites across North Texas.
Bowman said it’s crucial that law enforcement’s training and deployment of their drones are consistent.
“Public safety depends on the police being able to interoperate, and their equipment being able to talk to one another, that they’re on the same page, so to speak,” Bowman said.
The FAA only allows federal departments to mitigate drones that are a threat, but recently introduced legislation could extend counter-UAS authority to state and local law enforcement agencies responsible for securing the World Cup.
“I think any large-scale event nowadays in a big city, you’re going to have an abundant amount of drones. Some legal, some illegal,” Tomerlin said.
While the decision remains uncertain, Tomerlin said he’s hopeful that DPS and local agencies will eventually have more authority to take down bad actors in the air.