On Wednesday, August 19, 2026, the Louisville Metro Public Safety Committee convened at 4:01 PM in Council Chambers with a virtual option. Chair Dan Seum Jr. presided. A quorum was established with 9 members present (including two virtually) and one excused absence.
The sole agenda item was a special discussion on the First Responder Drone Program (ID 26-0767), presented by Trevin Hunter (Assistant Director, Louisville Metro Emergency Services), Lieutenant Colonel Kyle Fekete (Louisville Fire Department), and Detective Detrick Briggs (Louisville Metro Police Department). The meeting adjourned at 4:35 PM.
To choose this work voluntarily, to welcome the independent scrutiny, and to act on the monitor's recommendations. This report demonstrates a strong foundation for the work ahead. It will be discussed in detail at the upcoming community safety commission meeting, which I believe is August twentieth. And you can find the full report online now at Alifa.org slash Louisville. And also want to thank while we're talking about law enforcement, thank LMPD, who recently has made some very significant arrests. I know many people across the community are concerned about car thefts that are happening across town. And I want to thank LMPD for their focus on this issue and submit some significant arrests that were also made. You can see the Belvidere in all its fifty plus years of glory right behind us. And for more than 50 years, the Belvidere has been one of our city's most iconic gathering spaces. But for too long, this landmark has been left without proper attention, without investment, and without needed repairs. We have to repair and rebuild this nearly one million square feet of aging concrete and ensure it can safely serve Louisville for generations to come. And today, I'm excited to offer a first look at the next chapter of the Belvidere. We're reimagining this space on the Belvedere as a welcoming green, vibrant destination in the heart of downtown Louisville. Well, I've done a lot of traveling, a lot of research, and I have seen revitalized civic spaces like this absolutely transform other cities. And I have no doubt that we can make the Belvedere a place where everyone in our community feels welcome and included, a place that will bring energy and vitality to downtown and serve as a connective tissue between all these incredible organizations and institutions that call downtown home. And I loved hearing the story from Alejandro about this company that he founded right here in Louisville that he and his family and colleagues built through incredibly hard work with their deep connection to Louisville because Avastos is investing over 10 million dollars to expand its Louisville operation, double its physical footprint, and prepare this hometown company for its next chapter of growth. Luba has become more than the place where I grew up. It's where we build our dreams. We're incredibly thankful to Collectors. Good afternoon. The time is 4 01 p.m. This is a regularly scheduled meeting of the public safety committee. I'm your chair, Councilman Dan Syme. I'm joined virtually by my vice chair, Councilwoman Tammy Hawkins. Also virtually, we have Councilmember Scott Reed. In chambers, we have Councilmember Andrew Owen, Jonathan Joseph, Marcus Winkler, Betsy Ruey, Kevin Bratcher. We have an excused absence from Councilmember Jenny Mongrie Woolridge, and Shamika Parish Wright has joined us. Thank you, Madam Clerk. You're welcome. We have a discussion topic on the agenda today. Today we're joined by Deputy Chief Kyle Fakiti. Okay. With the Louisville Fire Department, Assistant Director of Louisville Metro Emergency Services, and UAS coordinator Dietrich Briggs with LMPD for an update on the first responder drone program. Who's gonna speak? Come on up and state your name, title for the record, and please begin. All right. My name is Trevin Hunter. I'm an assistant director with Louisville Metro Emergency Services. So thanks for having us back. It seems like it was just a short time ago that we were in here explaining what drone is first responder is as we uh put that in our budget for previous fiscal year. So here we are a year later. Wanted to come in and give a brief update of where we are, how we've used it to date, and uh where we're going in the future. So we got a quick slideshow, then we'll follow up with some videos of how we've used it. So drone is first responder is our is a program where drones are stationed on rooftops throughout the city, ready to respond to 911 calls as they're needed. So today we have eight of those, seven of which are on firehouses on Louisville fire property, one's on the new police headquarters, and we're looking to add eight more in the near future. So this helps to address several issues. People are calling 911, they may not know where they are, they may not be able to give exact information on what's going on. In those instances, we can deploy a DFR drone and get overhead and provide information to the responders before they get there. So this allows us to give them additional information that they have not had previously. Um get the drone launched quick enough, and then that helps them have better information while they're in route to the call.