BATON ROUGE -- The Baton Rouge Police Department unveiled a new drone Tuesday that is a great deal larger than any of the other 30 drones in its arsenal.

The department says it's called the Edge Autonomy Stalker VXE30. It has a 16-foot wingspan and is able to fly up to 400 feet, the maximum height the Federal Aviation Administration currently allows for the aircraft.

"Designed by Lockheed Martin, the same people who do space shuttles and stuff, so very much a great piece of equipment. (We're the) First department in the entire country to have this. Some of the federal agencies have it right now, Secret Service," Baton Rouge Police Chief TJ Morse said.

This move marks a shift by the department in recent years away from helicopters and into unmanned aircraft.

"Unfortunately, because of the tragedy in 2023, losing our helicopter program and our aviation support unit, we have now gone to really investing in the technology of drones," Morse said.

Currently, the aircraft has an operating range of about 30 miles; however, the department is working with the FAA to increase that to 100 miles.

"There are different cameras that can be attached. We have a thermal camera attached to it right now with very good zoom capabilities. It has a four-hour flight time. This current model," BRPD Drone Unit Commander Dustin Conde said.

Pilots use a computer to fly the drone, allowing them to continue operating even if they lose sight of it.

"The drone itself, of course, cost money, and then the training for all the pilots was a two-week training. The batteries and equipment, with everything together, it was about a $1,000,000 package deal, which was money that we got at the end of 2024, beginning of 2025. Working with the Mayor's office at the beginning of 2025, they gave us that money in our budget to be able to purchase the drone," Morse said.

The addition of the VXE30 brings the total number of drones in the unit's arsenal to 31. The department also has 24 FAA-licensed drone pilots.

"Everything from going inside houses to being up on perimeters looking for bad guys. We can put the drone in the air and help the fire department look for hotspots on buildings during a fire. We can use it to keep up with vehicle pursuits," Morse said.

Some civil rights organizations have raised concerns about this specific type of drone.

"(The drone) is provided by a company called Edge Autonomy, but it also works very closely with Lockheed Martin, you know, in other contexts, this is a stalker drone that's used by special ops in warzones, and that's because it can conduct long-range surveillance," the Electronic Frontier Foundation's Beryl Lipton said.

BRPD has maintained that it is following FAA guidelines and working to prevent any violations from happening.

"No kind of payloads or anything like that on there. The military uses this kind of thing for that kind of stuff, but we have cameras on there. That's what we're using it for. That's all we're going to be using it for. It can be miles away, but we can still have a camera looking at your face, so we can use it for surveillance operations," Morse said. 

Morse told WBRZ the department plans to use either the new drone or one of its other drones at this weekend's Louisiana Marathon to monitor both security and traffic.