Police put eyes in the sky with new drone program
Starting in fall, six-officer team to use aircraft to probe crashes, other crimes
Windsor police are elevating their ability to investigate crash scenes, find missing people and track down bad guys with the creation of a high-tech drone unit.
“It’s very much uncharted water,” said Sgt. Steve Betteridge. “We’ve never had a drone program before. It’s in the developmental stages. But it’s something where we feel technology that can assist our community in a wide range of possibilities. Some of that is still being assessed and evaluated as we roll out the development of the program.”
The program has been in development since January. Police wouldn’t reveal how many drones they have or what the program costs.
Betteridge said the Windsor Police Service bought the equipment from Aeryon Labs, a company based in Waterloo that makes “unmanned aircraft systems” for military and police use. Aeryon has sold drone systems to several other Ontario police forces.
Windsor police hope to launch its drone program with a six-person team in the fall.
“It is offering another piece of technology to keep our community safe,” said Betteridge. “So we have been studying this. We reached out to see if there was interest from some officers, and there were quite a few officers who expressed interest in being involved and having some training in a drone project.”
He said the officers had to undergo a wide range of training and testing before qualifying for the drone unit.
“It’s an extensive amount of training because the officers have to become well-versed in the laws surrounding drones and drone flight,” he said. “There are quite a few laws that cover that area. And also training to become effective and efficient in the operation of the drone.
“There’s a vast amount of technology that comes into it.”
Given the possibility that police could be flying drones in the area around Windsor International Airport, representatives from both camps have had discussions about safety concerns and other logistical issues.
Betteridge said the drone will only be used in public places where people should have no expectation of privacy, and only in a response to a specific call.
Officers won’t be flying the drones around randomly looking for speeders or people blowing through stop signs, he said.
In the initial stages, Betteridge said the drone will mainly be used for accident reconstruction.
“That is a tremendous advantage where a large motor vehicle collision scene can be quite easily mapped with some of this technology. The old school method, if I can use that term, could take hours if not days,” said Betteridge. “So that’s something that is much more efficient for our community.”
He said a secondary use would to help in the search for high-risk missing people.
“Over the course of a year, our service gets a high number of calls to assist with missing people,” said Betteridge. “Sometimes it’s an elderly person, maybe with some health issues or dementia, and sometimes it’s a very young child that’s gone missing. To be able to have an eye in the sky with a drone to assist with that, it’s very beneficial, especially if there’s information they’ve gone into an isolated area or some type of area that’s hard to get to by foot or by car.”
Once the program is established, he said drones could also come in handy in searching for a fugitive.
“Moving forward — and again I’m stressing it’s in the developmental stages — if we were looking for a suspect that had fled or was in a contained area where some drone visuals could assist in safely locating somebody, it could be used in a capacity along those lines as well,” said Betteridge.