GoKawiilIn a supposed “nationwide first” use of drones to disarm a person, the Sacramento County Sheriff’s Office in California promoted a video showing how a small quadcopter drone used a dangling magnet to remove a knife from the hand of a motionless suspect.
The promotional video shared to Facebook and Instagram on June 22, 2026, uses the Mission: Impossible film franchise theme to dramatize video footage of the incident that took place earlier in the month, which involved what the video describes as a “felony suspect armed with a knife and a firearm” who “was not responding to negotiators.” The sheriff’s office is just one among hundreds of US police departments and sheriff’s offices that have deployed camera-equipped drones to assist first responders.
In a Facebook post, the Sacramento County Sheriff’s Office described having surrounded the suspect’s residence with a SWAT team after the “known felon and parolee-at-large was seen earlier with a firearm.” A first drone deployed to the scene located the suspect hiding in a corner of the garage, but also spotted the motionless suspect holding a knife in one outstretched arm.
Piloted by an officer wearing a drone operator’s first-person view goggles, a second small drone equipped with a magnet on a cable flew into the garage. The video shows the motionless suspect in a gray hoodie lying facedown on a chair or sofa while still clutching the knife.
The drone then used the dangling magnet to grab the knife by the blade and pull it free from the apparently unresisting suspect’s hand. A final shot from the video shows the drone flying outside with the dangling knife spinning freely beneath it, enabling police officers to retrieve the drone. Some of the action in the video is also captured from the camera perspective of the first observer drone.