Law enforcement agencies turning to drones to fight crime
Law enforcement agencies turning to drones to fight crime
By: JOHN SEEWER, Associated PressPOSTED: MAY 28 2018
10:36AM EDT
TOLEDO, Ohio (AP) - No longer a novelty, drones are
becoming an everyday tool for more police and fire departments, new research
has found. The number of public safety
agencies with drones has more than doubled since the end of 2016, according to
data collected by the Center for the Study of the Drone at New York's Bard
College.
The center estimated that just over 900 police, sheriff,
fire and emergency agencies now have drones, with Texas, California, and
Wisconsin leading the way, the study showed.
While many law enforcement drone units are just getting
started and are in place in just a fraction of the public safety agencies
around the country, police and fire departments are continuing to find new uses
for the remote-controlled aircraft.
They're being deployed to take photos of car accidents,
guide firefighters through burning buildings and search for missing people and
murder suspects.
Some believe they will change policing much like laptops
in patrol cars, two-way radios and K-9 units.
"With this new environment we're in with active
shooters and mass shooters, you can be all over a school campus and see
everyone who's running out," said Grady Judd, a Florida sheriff, who this
year used money from drug seizures to buy 20 drones to cover all of Polk County
night and day.
He stressed that the drones will be used only in
emergency situations and not to spy on people. About a third of states, including
Florida, require police to get a warrant before using drones in a criminal
investigation.
Using drones, Judd said, is much cheaper than sending up
a helicopter and allows for a faster response. Those equipped with thermal
imaging can spot suspects at night.
"You can have a bad guy in a clump of palmettos
pointing a gun at you and you can't see him at all," he said. "Every
agency will have these teams in the future."
Most public safety agencies with drones have just one,
said Dan Gettinger, co-director of the drone research center.
"These agencies are the test cases," he said.
"A lot of these programs are still in their infancy."
The center's research showed that more than twice as many
agencies own drones as do those that operate helicopters and planes.
Police in Superior, Wisconsin, flew a drone over a
refinery fire in April to help firefighters see through thick smoke.
"We never envisioned working with the firefighters,
but now that we have the drone, it makes total sense," said Officer
Bradley Jago, a drone pilot.
Most of the agencies with drones are smaller departments
in rural and smaller departments, unlike users of manned aircraft operations,
which are centered in heavily populated places.
The sheriff's office in Ohio's Putnam County, a rural
area dominated by farmland, added a drone last year after a deputy brought his
own drone from home to help search for two men who broke into a farm building.
"We realized how useful it could be," said
Sheriff Brian Siefker, who said the department has since used the drone on
accident investigations and to search for marijuana growing in cornfields.
"The possibilities are endless."
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