NYPD Commissioner Bill Bratton on Wednesday vowed a crackdown on illegal drones — saying cops have had several scary run-ins with the flying menaces before a police chopper got buzzed near the George Washington Bridge.
“The mayor and I have some concerns about this type of abuse of that device, that we’ve experienced a half a dozen times over the last several months,” Bratton said.
“It will be treated very seriously by this administration.”
The Post exclusively reported Wednesday that two drones flew dangerously close to an NYPD chopper patrolling near the bridge Monday.
Remote-control operators Remy Castro, 23, and Wilkins Mendoza, 34, were both charged with reckless endangerment in the incident.
Speaking after an NYPD swearing-in ceremony in Queens, Bratton said he was concerned about both the “terrorism component” and “somebody out there effectively joyriding with the drone.”
Mayor de Blasio, also at the ceremony, said it was “incumbent upon all of us to get a clear message out to drone owners about the standards here.
“The Mayor’s Office will certainly work with the NYPD to make very clear what constitutes unacceptable behavior, but I’d like to disclose a common sense: no citizen should interfere with the work of the NYPD,” he said.
“I don’t care if that’s through a drone or on the ground. It’s a common-sense matter: when you see an NYPD vehicle, an NYPD helicopter, stay out of the way.”
“And so the point is, already on the books are laws that can be used to prosecute anyone that does something inappropriate, and we will not hesitate to do so but will certainly endeavor to do so,” he added.
Under Federal Aviation Administration rules, drones cannot be used anywhere for commercial purposes, and can be flown by hobbyists only inside parks, no higher than 400 feet and within sight of their operators.
Asked if the NYPD uses drones for its own surveillance operations, de Blasio called that “a new area also in public safety and something we would look at very carefully, but there would be a real conversation about it.”
Bratton said the NYPD was “staying in close touch with other police agencies, federal agencies that are using these devices, as to what they use them for, how effective are they.
Sources said the NYPD Aviation Unit has eight helicopters, some of which can be outfitted with a .50-caliber machine gun that ex-NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly has suggested could be used to bring down rogue aircraft.
Each helicopter crew chief is equipped with an M-4 assault rife, in addition to the 9mm pistol all cops carry, the sources said.
But the NYPD hasn’t yet developed a protocol for downing drones, with one source noting the near-impossibility of shooting a small, moving object. “This isn’t the movies,” the source said.
Despite the feds’ ban on commercial drone use, The Post has reported that many city Realtors use them to capture aerial images of high-end properties, with the FAA recently issuing a series of subpoenas over the practice.
Additional reporting by Harrison Marder