Why Police Helicopters Are Breaking Up College Parties

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 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.  

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