Like a UFO, a beam of light from a police helicopter pierced through the darkness and onto a house party near San Diego State University’s campus.
Squad cars also arrived to bust the Oct. 25 party in the backyard of a home on Montezuma Road. But the deafening roar of the helicopter seemed like overkill to onlookers.
“Out of nowhere, the entire backyard is completely lit up by the brightest light I’ve ever seen,” said Santiago Herrera, who attended the party. “I never heard any instructions from the police or anything like that because of all this chaos.”
San Diego police routinely use helicopters to break up college parties near San Diego State University. Yet their use has triggered fear and raised concerns about appropriate police spending by students and permanent residents of the university-adjacent neighborhood.
On Jan. 25, a police helicopter accompanied squad cars to investigate a report of bottles being thrown at another party on Dorothy Drive, according to San Diego Police Department spokesperson Anthony Carrasco.
Jacob McCalester, a permanent resident of the College Area, said he was making a sandwich in his kitchen when he saw the helicopter circling his neighborhood.
“I like to sleep comfortably. I got kids and stuff like that,” McCalester said. “But I don’t think our police resources should be wasted on college kids having a party.”
Carrasco said breaking up college house parties with helicopter assistance is a common occurrence. In fact, he says, a helicopter could respond to anything from petty thefts, to house fires, to traffic collisions.
“It’s so routine for us to utilize helicopters as much as possible,” Carasco said.
Why? San Diego Police helicopters are constantly flying over the city in shifts.
Currently, San Diego Police has four helicopters in service and 14 pilots flying day and night shifts nearly 20 hours every day.
“There’s really not a criteria for using or not using the helicopter,” Carrasco said. “Anytime we can utilize the tools on the helicopter, we want to.”
Standard SDPD helicopters are equipped with gadgets like powerful imaging cameras, searchlights, radios, navigation systems and digital recorders capable of capturing HD video and audio, according to a city maintenance contract.
Carrasco said everything police do is centered on deescalation. The presence of a helicopter can be used as a deescalation tool, too, he said.
For Liz Danielson, the opposite was true. The sound of a helicopter near campus on Jan. 25 reminded the student of an October 2024 incident when a shooting at a trolley stop near campus triggered the university to send alerts to students about police activity.
“My immediate reaction was, okay, what’s going on? Let me close my windows, let me lock my doors,” she said.
Nicolas Shapiro, a professor at the University of California-Los Angeles, studied the costs and benefits of helicopter use to society. Shapiro said helicopters have a history of misuse dating back to the Watts Rebellion in 1965, when helicopters were used during deadly clashes between Los Angeles police and predominately Black neighborhoods. This was the first use of helicopters as patrol vehicles, making way for other police departments to follow suit.
“It really came straight from wartime and appealing to sort of soldier like desires in law enforcement,” Shapiro said.
Shapiro said there’s little evidence that police helicopter practices have real crime suppression benefits. But there’s a lot of research showing aircraft noise can cause distress in humans. He pointed to other studies showing how chronic aircraft exposure can exacerbate depression and is related to cardiac disease, metabolic disorders, diabetes and a shortened lifespan.
Neither a San Diego State University spokesperson nor campus police responded to questions about the impact of helicopter use on residents and students.
Carrasco, from San Diego Police, said the department is concerned about preserving the standard of living for residential families in the College Area.
“We want to make sure that these parties aren’t disrupting and impacting their neighborhood’s quality of life,” he said.
Stop helicopter, too loud, total costs too high
I was wondering why the police budget kept increasing so dramatically over the years. It’s tactics like this. As a resident and homeowner near SDSU, I have noticed so many helicopters and echo the concern about the waste of resources and the validity of deescalation. The most concerning is Carrasco’s one sided view supporting current police procedures despite plenty of voiced concerns in opposition. It ignores the support of neighbors for our resident college kids to have fun with some boundaries and lacks the understanding that we do not support excess police activity, a disruption of peace in our neighborhoods. The students pay rent, and are mostly adults (18+), and therefore have to be considered as well. How did the police forget that? Some amount of living amongst lots of young people goes with living next to a university.
Skip the helicopters and charge the tenants and property owner the cost of having to send police to breakup out of control parties, especially nuisance properties.
One $5,000 bill for police response will get their attention without bothering the neighbors with a loud helicopter.
I agree with SOS San Diego. Although that only works if the police actually send cops to the parties to break them up or at least show face. I own a home in the area and have had to deal with out of control parties, with bottles being thrown and reckless driving. It was so bad I would have welcomed a helicopter. But instead I spent an hour on hold to talk to someone to make a complaint and then no one showed despite multiple homeowners calling on the same party. This happened several times, multiple years. Yes, students will party, thats part of living in the area, but there’s a line that is often crossed.
Agree 100%.
I have said for years that the cops are wasting precious resources and disturbing the city with these helicopters.
“Anytime we can utilize the tools on the helicopter, we want to.” I’m sure you do! It’s probably fun for them! But it’s very disruptive to the rest of us.
If you need arial surveillance, use drones. They keep these helicopters in the air all the time because they want to be able to use them at a moment’s notice – it’s crazy! They’ll come up with some BS statistics about what this accomplishes, but I’m completely unconvinced that they couldn’t do it in a cheaper, less disruptive way.
VOSD Please investigate this waste!
Your point is we’ll taken, rather than helicopters, good old boots on the ground will be more effective. No neighbors should have to put up with a live band playing from 9 pm to 1 am. Good helps us all if these party goers are our future.
I’m glad that you are reporting on the use of helicopters. I live in City Heights and a helicopter is circling the neighborhood yet again as I write this. It is noise pollution and actual pollution. Helicopters are circling my area multiple times a day and I hate it. They should only be used for life and death situations in my opinion.
One time I saw two kids furtively disappear into a nearby alley. They appeared to be on their way to a “tagging session”, so I called the non-emergency number and said “Hey, if you’ve got a cruiser nearby you can probably catch two taggers in the act”. Imagine my surprise when a helicopter was circling overhead shortly thereafter !
I am greatly opposed to the use of helicopters as a “standard” police enforcement tool. I live in Clairemont and we get our share of the circling overhead. The noise is quite disturbing and I am sure the costs to the city is tremendous. What heinous crimes are being committed that reuire the use of military-style force ?
Possibly the pilots need to log a certain number of hours to maintain their certification, but it doesn’t have to be at 10 or 11 pm.
All told, the expenses likely outweigh the benefits. This is an area that could benefit with some transparency
Have you guys ever flown a helicopter? It’s freaking fun.