The city of Seattle, Washington has taken the forefront in a fight spreading across the United States against the use of invasive police drones to conduct sweeping surveillance in locales from coast to coast.

Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn announced on Thursday that the city’s police department is abandoning plans to put unmanned aerial vehicles — UAVs, or drones — into the sky. But as the use of these aircraft and their high-tech capabilities take center stage in the media, other city executives across the US are making similar decisions.

Last spring, the Seattle Police Department confirmed the acquisition of a 3.5 pound Draganflyer X6 Helicopter Tech drone, an aircraft that at the cost of $41,000 could have allowed authorities in the Pacific Northwest city to spy from above on a town of over 600,000. When the agency introduced the aircraft last year, it was touted as being both an entertaining and useful tool for law enforcement to use during search-and-rescue missions.

“It’s very fun,” Officer Reuben Omelanchuk told the Seattle Times in April, “But doing it safely can be stressful at times.”

As a public backlash amounted in the months since, though, with civil liberty advocates taking charge in a fight to forego the use of drones, Mayor McGinn announced this week that the initiative will be aborted in lieu of other activities.

“Today I spoke with Seattle Police Chief John Diaz, and we agreed that it was time to end the unmanned aerial vehicle program, so that SPD can focus its resources on public safety and the community building work that is the department’s priority,” the mayor said to the media on Wednesday.

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