Cops use Phantom Drone To Hunt criminals

[ROD PAINTER]

I was watching Live PD last night. Law enforcement was hunting four criminals hiding in the woods behind a car dealership. They actually shot at the police. They brought in a Phantom Drone to help in the search. I could tell by the tablet holder that it was a DJI RC but they only showed a few seconds of the bird taking off. I can't say for sure but it might have been a Inspire 1. Also the video feed on the tablet looked to me like they were using some type of infrared camera. The trees were all white so I don't think it was a spotlight. Anyway it was nice to see law enforcement using a DJI product. Just wanted to share this with everybody.

 

[Pepino Grande]

I was looking at the prices of the IR cameras, wow $2000 and up for a good one. I would like to get one to hunt the hogs on my dads property but the price makes it prohibitive.

 

[Stew-2]

Do as they say, not as they do, apparently.

 

[$nowman]

They have it switched out with a FLIR camera.


Sent from my iPad using PhantomPilots

 

[V7Sport73]

I was looking at the prices of the IR cameras, wow $2000 and up for a good one. I would like to get one to hunt the hogs on my dads property but the price makes it prohibitive.

Yep, I do all my hog hunting at Walmart! It's easy pickings and the price is right!

 

[Grizz1]

I was watching Live PD last night. Law enforcement was hunting four criminals hiding in the woods behind a car dealership. They actually shot at the police. They brought in a Phantom Drone to help in the search. I could tell by the tablet holder that it was a DJI RC but they only showed a few seconds of the bird taking off. I can't say for sure but it might have been a Inspire 1. Also the video feed on the tablet looked to me like they were using some type of infrared camera. The trees were all white so I don't think it was a spotlight. Anyway it was nice to see law enforcement using a DJI product. Just wanted to share this with everybody.

i watched that as well ! it had to be an inspire 1 to carry that much weight of a 'FLIR' camera system. so far the inspire 2 doesnt have the mount to accept the same flir system, so definitely a inspire 1 !
and they caught all 4 suspects and discovered there was another one out there also they were still hunting for.

 

[Xenomorph]

This is excellent! Great to see the UAS being utilized in law enforcement! Hopefully more police agencies will adopt policies and really bring the benefits of UAS technology to the forefront.

 

[Jeff Bohner]

I can tell you one thing, although it is way cheaper to use a drone than a helicopter it is still taboo in popular opinion for civilian police forces to deploy drones. LAPD actually had one donated to them from the military a while back and it caused quite a stir! I know a few departments use them for strictly search and rescue type stuff and maybe crime scene photography. It might be awhile before UAV's are deployed for normal police patrol type of situations.

 

[Richard R]

Yeah, in some peoples mind all drone users are perverts. Even (especially?) LEO. The public has been inundated by Hollywood with bogus technical capability about sUASs that they think that they can/are doing much more than is really possible from totally fantastic surveillance capabilities to actually attacking (not every 'drone' is a hellfire equips Predator!). Episodes like this one, even though positive, will help to flame already paranoid people! Not really a new thing, any one remember the movie "Blue Thunder" with Roy Scheider? Be pretty scary if they could really do those things and now no one (except the bad guys) even thinks twice when they see a police helicopter. It would be nice to think that we would someday reach that level of nonchalance from the public. Oh well!