The Cortez Police Department recently replaced its drone after the previous one crashed itself during a training flight sometime early last year.
“The program itself did not go away, it just has been slow to grow,” said Tyler Smith, the pilot in the drone program, in an email.
The program is now equipped with “a new, more advanced drone” with “all the capabilities we need for law enforcement and rescue missions,” the department shared on a CrimeWatch post Dec. 20.
Though, at present, the program is made up of just one drone and the one certified pilot to fly it, the department is pursuing grants to help pay for the growing program, Smith said.
The drone program has been evolving – in Smith’s words, “slowly” – for the past few years, and the plan is to keep it growing, he said.
“The goal would be to have a handful of pilots, each with their own drone, so they can deploy quickly to where they are needed,” Smith said.
He went on to say that the program “adds a whole new dimension to the department.”
“An eye in the sky can make us much more effective in locating people and keeping the community safe,” he said.
It’s effective, then, in a variety of missions, like locating missing people, hostage situations, more safely evaluating potential explosives and more.
Smith wanted “to clarify” some “common concerns.”
“Our drones are not for random surveillance,” he said.
All missions have a purpose, even training flights. Plus, the drone can’t “see through walls or anything of the sort.” Instead, its thermal camera sensors “pick up only surface temperatures,” Smith said.
