Since the Los Angeles Police Department’s drone program got off the ground about four years ago, the officers who pilot the small, flying machines with cameras attached have been finding different ways of using them.
Most of the time, that has meant sending up a drone to get a better view of a property where someone might be barricaded with a weapon. Or it could mean hovering a drone over an area for a wider view as police try to track down a fleeing suspect.
Now, commanders told the Police Commission on Tuesday, Sept. 26, officers have gotten access to drones small and maneuverable enough to fly inside a building almost as well as they do outside. And that’s opening up far more options for the department’s small fleet of drones.
“Now that we’re seeing their capabilities — how fast they are, how agile — we’re finding that they are remaining mobile inside,” said Deputy Chief David Kowalski.
It was not clear Tuesday how often LAPD has flown a drone inside a building since the department first got official approval for their use in 2019. In the first year they were used, the department deployed its drones sparingly: Just five times starting in August 2020 over the next 12 months.
In one of those early incidents, a pilot briefly flew a drone through a broken window to peer inside a room where officers believed a domestic-violence suspect was holed up. But the drone did not spend much time inside the building before the officers were given the go ahead to enter themselves.
More than three years later, LAPD’s use of drones is rising. From July 2022 to June 2023, police deployed drones 10 times.
Kowalski said LAPD now has drones that look like tiny, palm-sized quadcopters, small and nimble enough to spend long periods inside a building. New models have also come with protective features that prevent the drones from being downed by clipping a wall or other obstructions.
Kowalski pointed to a recent case in Valinda, an unincorporated community…
Read the full article here