Eye in the Sky in Police Service

This post is also available in: עברית (Hebrew)

A drone helped law enforcement teams to end a barricade incident. Daytona Beach, Florida police used a drone to end a six-hour standoff peacefully. The suspect barricaded himself in his hotel room and said he had a grenade. The officers used a drone to look into the man’s hotel room. “He did have a grenade, but it turned out to be a dummy grenade that was hollowed out from the bottom, so realistically he was no real threat,” Daytona Beach Police Deputy Chief Jakari Young said, according to fox35orlando.com.

Security consultant James Copenahver said it is a good example of how technology is helping police in these types of dangerous situations. “It certainly amplified the officers’ safety aspect of it, so they can deploy these units without a cop looking in the window, if you will.” 

“The drone can fly up there,” Copenhaver said. “They’re very quiet. I’m sure the suspect had his intention waiting for the front door. Waiting for law enforcement to smash in and they sort played and in, around if you will, and caught him by surprise.” The suspect in this case has been charged with aggravated assault and for making a false bomb threat.

In a previous incident, in New York City in March, a stand-off between police and a man who they thought had barricaded himself into an apartment with a gun could have ended differently had it not been for the use of a drone by the NYPD.

Police negotiating with a man who had locked himself into an apartment several stories up were able to see him as they talked by flying a drone up to the window. The incident was the first time NYPD had deployed a drone to use it in this way, the department said on Twitter.

The drone helped officers, who had been negotiating with the man for hours, make sure that he put what looked like a gun down onto the windowsill before they went to take him into custody, according to patch.com.