#Minneapolis cops defend using drones to spy on nude sunbathers

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Golden Valley police in Minnesota used a drone to surveil topless beachgoers.
KARE 11

Minneapolis cops used drones to spy on nude sunbathers after a slew of complaints over topless and naked beachgoers, officials said.

The Golden Valley Police Department deployed the high-tech surveillance devices on July 10 at Twin Lake in Theodore Wirth Park, the city of Golden Valley confirmed in a statement.

“For decades, police response to the unauthorized beach has been based on complaints by local residents and park patrons. The beach has been the location of sexual assaults and other sexual activities, a substance-related drowning, an accident resulting in paralysis, and drunk driving and narcotics arrests,” reads the statement, posted to the city’s website.

“Regarding this latest incident, police were responding to complaints about illegal beach behavior and encountered illegal consumption of alcohol and nudity.”

Police Sgt. Randy Mahlen defended the nudie surveillance to CNN affiliate WCCO, saying the use of drones to spy on sunbathers in their birthday suits is “no different than a surveillance camera in a public place for a high-crime area,” the outlet reported.

“Drone footage is accessible only to very few staff within the department and is only used for documentation, evidence collection, and prosecution if needed,” the city’s statement adds.

“Police staff are trained in data privacy and maintaining confidentiality. By law, people in public spaces have no expectation of privacy from being recorded by security devices.”

Frequent visitor Elsie Olin told WCCO the somewhat sheltered lake beach is commonly known as being “a safe place to just be comfortable.”

Olin and other witnesses who saw the drones said it looked like cops were targeting people of color, the outlet said.

“The two or three black people that were super visible on the beach, [officers] went straight for them,” Olin said.

Jacob Carrigan took to Facebook to call the Big Brother-esque surveillance “outrageous,” the outlet reported.

Golden Valley said in response they collected “information” on eight people to determine if citations should be issued and of those eight, two were people of color.

When the crowd grew hostile over the surveillance, cops changed plans and decided not to issue any citations, Mahlen told the outlet.

“We made the choice that things were only escalating and we chose to leave,” the sergeant said.

In the last year, police have written more than 40 citations at the location for violations including indecent exposure, unlawful consumption of alcohol and after-hours park usage, officials said.

Luckily for those captured, the city deletes drone data “as soon as possible” and doesn’t retain it for longer than seven days unless it is part of an active criminal investigation.