JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:
Drones have shown up uninvited at sporting events across the country in recent years, including an NFL game in 2023 between the Baltimore Ravens and Cincinnati Bengals.
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UNIDENTIFIED SPORTSCASTER: Apparently, a - there was a drone inside the stadium, so they had to stop play.
SUMMERS: While mostly a nuisance so far, such incursions are a growing security concern for law enforcement. That is particularly true next month when the U.S. hosts its first World Cup matches. As NPR's Ryan Lucas reports, the FBI and its partners are racing to protect the cup and future big events from drones.
RYAN LUCAS, BYLINE: On a patch of grass at a training facility in Huntsville, Alabama, the FBI's Michael Torphy makes sure everything is set.
MICHAEL TORPHY: Ready to go, huh? Give it a little room, just in case, you know? It'll go right up, but...
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LUCAS: A quadcopter drone rises into the air. On its underside, you can see FBI in yellow block letters on a blue background. The drone hovers in the air, and then sirens go off and it plays this message.
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AUTOMATED VOICE: This is the FBI. You have violated a no-fly zone. Land your drone immediately and await contact by law enforcement. Do it now.
LUCAS: That is the message that someone operating an unauthorized drone would hear once located by the authorities. The demonstration comes at the tail end of a two-week course designed and run by the FBI to train state and local police officers on countering drones. The students learn how to detect, track and combat drone threats. And once certified, they will be able to work in tandem with federal officers to disable unauthorized drones at big sporting events and other mass gatherings.
The FBI invited a group of journalists to Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville, Alabama, to observe some of the training. The course was started late last year. This is the fourth class to come through the school, and it includes police officers from New Jersey, New York, Miami and Los Angeles. Michael Torphy leads the FBI's drone program.
TORPHY: This course is about teaching people the fundamentals of the technology but more importantly, the judgment of when to use it.
LUCAS: Torphy is speaking in front of a mobile command center. The FBI didn't allow journalists to record inside the vehicle for security reasons, but we do get a quick peek of what it looks like. Flat screens with maps and live video feeds line the walls. At a table, trainees sit hunched over laptops. One of them shouts out when he detects an unauthorized drone enter protected airspace, and they decide how to respond. The course gives the officers hands-on training, including a final exercise at a local stadium. Back outside the command truck, the FBI's Devin Kowalski says drones are here to stay.
DEVIN KOWALSKI: Every major public gathering, from a World Cup match to an America 250 celebration, is now a drone environment.
LUCAS: Kowalski is the director of the FBI's Critical Incident Response Group, which oversees the counter-drone program.
KOWALSKI: I want to be very clear. The FBI is not looking for the hobbyist. We're looking for the threat.
LUCAS: Most drone activity in the U.S., Kowalski says, is legal. He points to things like a realtor filming a house for a new real estate listing or a parent filming a kid's soccer game.
KOWALSKI: The work you saw today is targeted at the very small margin of people who break the law.
LUCAS: The nightmare scenario, officials say, is a terrorist or foreign adversary attaching explosives to a drone and targeting a stadium, causing mass casualties. But even a drone that drops an unknown substance, say, a white powder, on a crowd of thousands could cause panic and chaos. And while neither has happened at a U.S. stadium yet, there have been incidents involving weaponized drones. In 2024, a Tennessee man was charged with trying to use a drone loaded with explosives to attack an electrical substation.
The FBI training here in Alabama was created because of the proliferation of drones. But the push to get officers through the course now is tied to this summer's World Cup, when fans from around the world will fill U.S. stadiums and fan zones in 11 American cities.
ANDREW GIULIANI: You want to be able to give law enforcement the ability to protect those 70-, 80-, 100,000 people that are in and around the stadium.
LUCAS: Andrew Giuliani is the head of the White House World Cup Task Force.
GIULIANI: If you want to give them the full capabilities, you got to be able to give them the sovereignty over the skies, so that way they can protect not just what's walking into the stadium but also what potentially could be flying into the stadium.
LUCAS: Giuliani was one of several senior officials who made the trek down to the FBI's Huntsville campus for the latest class' graduation ceremony. In a small auditorium, the students, most of them dressed in dark blue or olive green police uniforms, walk up on stage one by one and collect their certificates.
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LUCAS: They will now head home as certified counter-drone experts and will soon be on the beat, protecting the skies above World Cup stadiums and other major events in the future. Ryan Lucas, NPR News, Huntsville, Alabama. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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