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Fairfax County police are expanding their use of artificial intelligence tools for emergency response, combining AI-equipped body cameras with an expanding drone network.

Officers in four of the county’s eight police districts have been issued Axon Body 4 cameras, which include a real-time translation application supporting 57 languages. Sgt. Evan Brandolino, who oversees the department’s body-camera program, said officers had used the translation feature in nearly 20 languages during testing, with Spanish accounting for about 80% of that use.

The translation tool addresses a significant need in Fairfax County, where about 35% of households have a primary language other than English and more than 180 languages are spoken throughout the county, according to census data cited by the department.

“This camera is filling a critical gap when officers are first on scene of an emergency and they’re trying to get a suspect description, direction of travel, those key pieces of information, and they don’t have time to wait for an interpreter to show up,” Brandolino said.

The cameras also feature Axon’s Draft One system, which uses body-camera footage to automatically generate a rough draft of a police report. Officers must review and edit the drafts for accuracy. Brandolino said Draft One could reduce report-writing work that previously took hours to approximately 15 to 30 minutes.

However, the department prohibits Draft One’s use for homicides, sex offenses, and critical incidents such as police shootings, according to department policy.

“Body cameras today in 2026 are no longer just tools for recording footage,” Brandolino said. “They’re not just tools for transparency and accountability in law enforcement.”

The police department also expanded its Drone as First Responder program, which launched in early 2026. The program operated 13 drone launch sites at the time of a recent department demonstration and planned to expand to 18 sites across the county.

The drones have a two-mile operating radius and an average response time of about two minutes, according to the department. Police reported that the drone program had surpassed 1,500 missions in 2026 and that drones arrived before other responders at emergencies about 70% of the time.

Drones have been deployed to assess house fires, locate vehicles that left the roadway, and find missing people. Second Lt. Brad Woehrlen, who oversees standards and training for the drone programs, described an incident where a drone determined that a person reported as carrying a bow and arrow in a roadway median was instead carrying a stick—information that prevented a potentially expansive police response and road closure.

“It was a perfect de-escalating tool,” Woehrlen said of the drone deployment. “In situations like that, getting that data there before the officers got there proved invaluable.”

Woehrlen said drones can be dispatched to locations identified in 911 calls and are required to keep their cameras facing forward while traveling to an incident. “We put them through a rigorous training program to make sure that they’re able to respond as best they can to help our community,” he said.