On Tuesday, the department introduced a new program that will allow is officers to use a drone as a first responder. The robotic aircraft, made by Aerodome and equipped with technology from Flock Safety, will launch remotely in response to emergencies, arriving on the scene before flesh-and-blood officers do.
The department already has seven drones it uses to help catch suspects and mount searches. Scottsdale police said they’ve used the devices to find an art thief hiding on a rooftop and to locate an elderly person who wandered into the desert. But those drones must be transported to the scene before they can be launched.
The new drone will be more responsive. It will be stationed atop Scottsdale Center for the Performing Arts in Old Town and launched remotely by Federal Aviation Administration-certified pilots, whom the police dub “real-time crime center technicians.” Once in flight, the drone can reach the scene of an emergency in as few as 85 seconds and transmit live information to the cell phones of responding officers en route.
“Flying 56 to 58 miles per hour, it can be anywhere in its operating area in about a minute, and start giving us real-time information about what’s happening on the ground,” said Scottsdale Assistant Police Chief Rich Slavin, who is leading the drone program.
Scottsdale is the second police department in the country to use these Aerodome drones. The police department in Elk Grove, California, was the first.
Technicians from the Scottsdale police's Real Time Crime Center will see this feed from the agency's new first responder drone.
Courtesy of Flock Safety
Scottsdale’s new drone won’t be operational for another five to 10 days. When it is, it will cover only 28 square miles. Scottsdale police chose to station the drone in Old Town because 50% of the city’s crime occurs south of McDonald Drive, according to the department.
If the first drone works out well, though, the department will consider adding additional devices to its fleet. The department hopes to eventually have five or six drones to cover the 184 square miles that comprise Scottsdale, according to Scottsdale Police Chief Jeff Walther. Each drone, which comes with a docking station, costs the city $308,000. Acquiring enough drones to cover the entire city would cost Scottsdale nearly $2 million.
The project continues a partnership between Scottsdale police, Flock Safety and Aerodome, which Slavin called “yet another layer” of technology for the department to use to combat crime. Scottsdale police already use Flock Safety to power its network of license plate reader cameras, which the department said has allowed it to prevent crime and track and catch criminals — including wannabe serial killer Raad Almansoori.
Additionally, the department's Real Time Crime Center has access to more than 5,000 camera feeds from around Scottsdale, which Slavin said “provide the best intelligence to our responding officers regarding whatever tactical emergency is occurring in the city.”
“The chief wants to make it very, very hard to commit crime in this city and get away with it,” Slavin added.
That’s a lot of cameras, which raises concerns about the agency's potential to snoop on law-breaking and law-abiding citizens alike. For those wary of Big Brother, the department said its new drone is equipped with privacy protocols. As a drone travels to its destination, its cameras will remain forward-facing and won’t pan down toward private residences. Only when the drone arrives at its assigned location will it point its camera toward the ground.
