New records obtained by BINJ also confirm that BPD flew a drone over this year’s Dominican Parade
The Boston Police Department deployed 71 drone flights over this year’s Caribbean Carnival and related celebrations, according to records newly obtained by the Boston Institute for Nonprofit Journalism.
The 71 flights are more than five times the number of recorded police drone deployments for any event in Boston last year.
BPD produced the records after BINJ published a story in September about the department failing to respond to our records request within 10 business days as required by state law.
In the end, we obtained two sets of drone flight logs: one for the Dominican Parade on Aug. 17, and one for the Caribbean Carnival on Aug. 23.
We are able to compare the flights from this year to a publicly available list of BPD drone deployments from last year. That compendium indicates that outside of practice flights, the event with the most drone flights in 2024 was the Dominican Parade, with 14 recorded deployments. However, last year’s list notably does not include any numbers for the Caribbean Carnival—making our finding about 71 drone flights this year all the more noteworthy.
BPD drone flights at the 2025 Dominican Parade
The drone flight logs for Aug. 17 include a flight at the same time and location as the drone we recorded hovering over celebrants at the Dominican Parade, indicating that we had indeed captured an image of a drone belonging to BPD on that Sunday afternoon.
The logs detailed 19 flights in total overlapping with the Dominican Parade and related celebrations, spanning from the afternoon of Aug. 17 through just after midnight on Aug. 18. The daytime flights occurred over Egleston Square, at the intersection of Columbus Avenue and Washington Street. The nighttime flights were listed as occurring over the intersection of Elm Hill Avenue and Seaver Street—an area with several large apartment complexes next to Franklin Park where post-Parade celebrations occur.
BPD drone flights at Caribbean Carnival
The logs detailed 71 flights around the time of Caribbean Carnival and related celebrations, spanning from mid-morning to 10:30pm on Aug. 23. The 71 flights dwarf the number of recorded BPD drone deployments for any event last year. (Remember: last year’s log does not include the number of flights for Carnival.)
The flight coverage areas for this year’s Caribbean Carnival included the intersection of Blue Hill Avenue and Talbot Avenue, the Franklin Hill apartments on Shandon Road, the same section of Elm Hill Avenue that was surveilled during the Dominican Parade, and the area near Shattuck Hospital (celebrations started around 5am that day, although the flight log doesn’t list any BPD drone deployments in the vicinity until almost 10am).
Regarding federal collaboration
For our feature last month, we asked the BPD about whether drone footage might end up in the hands of federal agencies. On this point, we also got an answer after publication. The BPD said it had not provided footage from any of the above drone flights to any federal agencies, nor had any federal agencies requested such footage.
