While reports of drone sightings in New York City are up, the actual number of drones flying above the city has remained steady, according to the NYPD.
But Rebecca Weiner, the NYPD's deputy commissioner of intelligence and counterterrorism, said Monday that news stories and social media posts may have led New Yorkers to be more vigilant than usual, causing a spike in reporting in the city. Many of the sightings have turned out not to be drones at all, she said.
The NYPD can penalize those who fly drones without permits, but doesn’t currently have the authority to directly interfere with the flights — something only the feds can do, she said.“ It would be very helpful to us because there is a potential public safety risk that's quite apart from nefarious drone activity, right? That's just people flying these things as a hobby into a building and it falling and killing someone,” she said.
“There's definitely information that we wouldn't have awareness of, right? Even classified information, potentially. So I'm not going to ever say something is impossible, but that just feels very inconsistent with the information we have from federal partners,” she said.