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A look into how drone teams help law enforcement
A police drone equipped with thermal imaging and a loudspeaker successfully tracked down and helped arrest three men armed with illegal firearms after a midnight shooting incident in Cedar Park.
AUSTIN, Texas - After three men were arrested following reports of gunfire in Cedar Park, authorities are revealing how a Williamson County Sheriff's Office drone team helped locate the suspects and safely bring the incident to an end.
What we know:
Just after midnight on July 4, Cedar Park police officers responded to reports of shots fired near Kettering Road and Bagdad Road. As officers arrived, they heard additional gunfire, but locating the suspects in the dark posed a significant challenge.
"That's a dangerous situation for officers in the dark because you're walking around, and you're blind until you actually see them," Williamson County Sheriff's Office Detective Mark McKinney said. "They may see you before you see them, which creates a very deadly situation."
How the drone helped
The Williamson County Sheriff's Office responded with one of its drones, which used thermal imaging to detect the suspects' heat signatures from above.
"The pilot on that incident actually was able to use thermal imaging to detect those suspects and locate them," McKinney said. "He was able to give them commands over the PA system to get them to surrender to the officers that were closing in on them."
Three men were arrested and charged with possession of prohibited weapons.
Officers recovered seven firearms, including two Draco-style pistols and five Glock pistols. Two of the Glock pistols were equipped with illegal machine gun conversion devices, commonly known as "switches."
What they're saying:
McKinney said the case is one of the latest examples of how drones are changing modern policing.
"There's probably a drone flight by one of our pilots at least once a day," McKinney said when asked how often the drones are deployed.
The Williamson County Sheriff's Office launched its drone program about five years ago. It has since expanded to a team of 12 pilots overseen by two sergeants and a lieutenant.
McKinney estimated each drone costs about $15,000 because of its advanced technology, including thermal imaging cameras, loudspeaker systems and high-resolution imaging equipment.
"Since then, technology has greatly improved, and we're able to do a lot more things than we could then," McKinney said.
How drones are changing police work
Dig deeper:
Beyond locating suspects, the drones are regularly used during search-and-rescue missions, major traffic crashes and barricaded subject calls throughout Williamson County.
McKinney said the aircraft can quickly survey large areas, map crash scenes and take precise measurements that investigators later use to reconstruct collisions.
"We can actually deploy them and scale the scene and take measurements that the Traffic Division uses to recreate the accident," he said.
During barricaded subject calls, officers can also fly drones inside homes before entering themselves.
"We can actually fly a drone into the residence to either see where the suspect is, or if they're injured, or anything like that to reduce the risk to the officer," McKinney said.
He said drones can search attics, closets and bedrooms before officers enter.
"If there is someone there, we know where they are, so we can go straight to them instead of having to search the entire house before we get to them," he said.
McKinney said agencies across Central Texas routinely assist one another with drone operations when needed, ensuring aerial support is available even when a department does not have a pilot on duty.
"Even if we don't have a pilot on duty at that time, we could very easily request one from one of these other agencies," McKinney said. "They would be more than willing to come and help us just as we would be willing to go and help them. It's kind of a coordinated effort with drones."
What's next:
As more law enforcement agencies adopt drone technology, McKinney said interest in becoming a drone pilot has grown significantly within the Williamson County Sheriff's Office.
"We did our process last year for getting new pilots onto our team from our own agency, and the amount of people that put in for that to try to become a drone pilot was way more than we've ever had," McKinney said. "The large amount of interest in people wanting to fly them is going to grow the program and just make it better."
The Source: Information in this article as provided by FOX 7's Marco Bitonel.