GLENDALE, AZ — Glendale police gave ABC15 a first-hand look at their Drone First Responder program, utilizing a drone to get to a potential crime scene before patrol officers to get an idea of what is happening.
“We don’t know what that call for service is, we don’t know what’s going on,” said Ryan Enos with Glendale Police Department. “But if we can get a drone there...we can beat patrol there and give them situational awareness with eyes directly on scene and make it safer for them and make that unknown a little more known.”
The drone can travel around 35 miles per hour and won't run into red lights and traffic the way patrol officers responding to a call would. That allows Glendale’s Real Time Crime Center to relay information they see to officers responding and sometimes upgrade or downgrade the response.
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“If they say there’s a fight in the park and we get there and it’s two people just verbally arguing and they go their separate ways, we don’t need a six- or seven-officer response,” Enos said. “We can now go ‘let's keep some of you guys available for other calls for service,’ downgrade it and de-escalate the situation.”
The police department hopes to eventually have seven drones stationed on city-owned buildings around the city to help their responses.
The ACLU has published concerns about the use of police drone technology but Glendale PD says their scope is focused.
“We only record once we get on scene. We’re only getting that information and intel back to them. This isn’t a search of the entire community,” Enos said. “We just have to be able to pick and choose which calls we go to based on the severity and where we need it the most.”
