"We're getting ready ... within the next year, to implement a pretty cool program called Drone as First Responder," FPD Chief Jason Lando said at the quarterly meeting of the Chief's Community Advisory Board.
Drone as First Responder programs have been adopted by police departments across the country, including the Montgomery County Department of Police.
These departments place drones across their coverage areas and send them to the site of police calls to determine if a ground response is needed — and if it is, how large the response should be.
While Drone as First Responder programs are not proactive — they must be responding to specific calls for the police — they have come under scrutiny from privacy activists, including the ACLU.
The Chief's Community Advisory Board, an invite-only group of about 50 community leaders, activists and students, has met since 2021. It serves as an opportunity for the department to communicate its process regarding technology, gear, and real-time decision making.
"This group serves two purposes. To educate them on the things we do, and ... if we do have a critical incident and we need to reach out to the city quickly, we would call this group in and brief them on what happened. And they would be our biggest voice," Lando said.
This week's Chief's Community Advisory Board had presentations on the use of body cameras and drone technologies.
Sgt. Vince Brown, the head of the department's drone program since 2021, said it began in 2016, when the department was given a DJI Inspire 2 drone by the federal government. "Uncle Sam bought it for us," he said.
That drone was used for just 12 flights between 2016 and 2019, but the drone program has grown significantly since. Samantha Long, a police spokesperson, said the department currently has eight licensed pilots and seven drones.
A 2023 Frederick police purchase order for a DJI Avata Recon Bundle Kit shows that the department paid $5,143 for the package.
The drones photograph, video and audio record, and livestream video for the department. The data is stored and processed on third-party cloud platforms such as DroneSense and Pix4D.
In a presentation, Brown listed a number of current uses for the drones:
* Locating missing persons
* Crime scene documentation and mapping
* Locating fleeing suspects
* Providing aerial support and distraction in hostage and barricade situations
* Providing initial view during critical incidents (natural disasters, suicidal subjects, unstable buildings and areas)
* Giving announcements over loudspeakers to communicate to large groups, people in a remote area, or on search warrants
* Providing light with spotlight equipment
* Interior search (with smaller drones)
* Aerial monitoring for search warrants
Brown also noted that the department has a strong working relationship with neighboring departments and regularly deploys its drones to help them when asked.
Though Frederick police are still researching specifics for a Drone as First Responder program, they already have an big-picture idea for how the technology could be deployed in Frederick.
"You can have an officer sitting at a console in headquarters flying this drone," Brown said. "But if I fly that drone out to an incident and officers show up to have a pilot on the ground that can take control of that aircraft and then move it where we need to go, that also gives us capability of 'leapfrog.'"
The leapfrog technique is a way of extending the range that Frederick police can move the drone within the city.
Because drone pilots are not legally allowed to operate their aircrafts when it is outside of their line of sight without a waiver, having a number of licensed pilots available at all times allows the department to pass the drone from the line of site of one pilot to another.
The department is excited about the prospect of launching a Drone as First Responder program, but it is "not at the stage of ordering hardware," Brown said.
© 2024 The Frederick News-Post (Frederick, Md.). Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
