By Cecilia Nasmith/Northumberland 89.7 FM/Today’s Northumberland
The Cobourg Police Service will be acquiring drone capabilities, following a vote at the Cobourg Police Services Board’s March meeting.
Chief Paul VandeGraaf said it would be a $40,000 investment for equipment and training which, through the contribution of their corporate-services division, would come at no cost to the taxpayers.
Constables Tyler McKown and Taylor Emmerton, who had the assistance of crime analyst Lesley Rodrigues in putting together their presentation, reported to the board on how such technology might enhance community safety while making more efficient use of police resources
“They have done a ton of work on their own time,” Chief Paul VandeGraaf said of the team.
“It’s obviously a proud moment in police leadership to have them come forward.”
The constables said that drone technology is more formally known as Remote Piloted Aircraft System or RPAS. It gives an instantaneous bird’s-eye view of the kind of large areas – crowds, traffic issues, urban and rural terrain – that would take staff and other resources much more time to cover. And in such emergency situations as a missing person or an active shooter, time can make a life-or-death difference.
There is a spotlight attachment for use at night, and infra-red capability picks up bodies and even footprints. This allows it to follow suspects in real time without endangering officers on the ground.
And (as in a recent missing-person incident) in the time required to muster forces and call in help (such as the canine unit), a drone can be up and searching and covering ground.
In patrolling situations, drone footage can identify individuals and groups that pose a threat, which means addressing the threat sooner.
And in the summer when a few thousand more people are in town, it is better than feet on the ground on beach weekends and downtown festivals.
That’s the outdoors drone. They also showed mock footage of a school-shooter incident to display the capabilities of an indoor drone. It can scout out rooms and tight spaces, scope out potential hiding places and check them – all without danger to officers.
In the footage, the “shooter” was hidden in a remote corner of a room where he or she would have been completely invisible to an on-the-ground officer making a visual assessment.
The presentation ended with the proposal of acquiring a DJI Matrice 30T for outdoor work and a DJI AVATA 2 for indoor work. In both models, once the battery’s capacity is used up, they can be brought down to have the battery switched out and then back at work immediately.
VandeGraaf detailed how certain planned purchases could be put off for a year to allow this investment.
“I truly believe this is the next step in ensuring we are addressing the issues that are in front of this community, and being a great public-safety partner to Peterborough, Belleville, Port Hope and our fire services,” he stated.
The actual equipment cost would be about $22,000, and the rest of the cost would cover training three more pilots to use it.
“Forty thousand is a lot, but it sounds like a good value for the investment,” Member Nicole Beatty declared, making the motion to make that investment.
No time line for the acquisition was shared.
