Racialized Impacts of Law Enforcement Helicopter Surveillance in Los Angeles

Project Description

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Past

This project investigates how helicopter surveillance contributes to inequitable sleep disturbance across Los Angeles. Drawing on over 20 million flight trajectory points, the team integrates public records, community knowledge, and advanced machine learning to identify unreported law enforcement helicopter flights and analyze their disproportionate presence over specific neighborhoods. By combining these data with demographic and spatial information, the study explores how nighttime helicopter noise may affect neurological and psychosocial health outcomes. Conducted through a community-engaged framework with partners at Cangress (Los Angeles Community Action Network) and Matyos Kidane, the project connects environmental neuroscience with urban justice and public policy.

Highlights

  • This seed grant award has been leveraged to secure continuing funding from RWJF ($581,248): Link: https://evidenceforaction.org/grant/pathways-reducing-sleep-fragmentation-due-law-enforcement-helicopter-surveillance 
  • Presented psychiatric grand rounds at Charles R. Drew University of Medicine and Science (CDU), Oct. 29, 2025. Talk title: Law Enforcement Surveillance, Incarceration, and Health in Los Angeles.
  • Presented with seed grant awardee Valarie Tornini, May 19, 2026, The Sound of the City: How Urban Noise Shapes Brain and Body in LA” at the Wende Museum in association with Acoustical Society of America. 
  • Co-authored a paper with Amy (co-author last name not specified in submission). Published in Social Science & Medicine – Population Health, 2025. Link: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2666572725000240
  • Co-Taught Course Co-taught Science, Mass Incarceration, and Accountability (Soc Gen 150XP) with John Horton Jr. (honorary co-instructor) in Spring 2025 at UCLA. The course analyzed historical legacies of incarceration and its intersections with science, public health, and community-engaged research. 

Team Members

Nick Shapiro, DPhil, MPhil

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Associate Professor
UCLA | Institute for Society & Genetics

Matyos Kidane

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Community Organizer

Denisse Paredes

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Postdoctoral Scholar
UCLA | Department of Psychology

Community Collaborators:

  • Cangress (Los Angeles Community Action Network)
  • Matyos Kidane