At the Drone World Expo held in San Jose, California, a panel of four law enforcement officers approved the use and probable near-term expansion of UAVs. Highlighting UAVs as a cost-effective way of improving public safety, Cmdr. Tom Madigan of Alameda County Sheriff’s Office (ACSO) hopes that they will be able to deploy the technology out of a patrol car in the near future.
ACSO is one of the largest law enforcement agencies in northern California, with a fleet of six drones that are often loaned out and used on behalf of other public safety agencies. In the last year they have deployed seventy missions, marking them as one of the most active UAV units in the US.
Recent incidents that have involved ACSO’s drones include:
- An emergency response to a fire in a hundred unit building on the Oakland-Emeryville border
- Monitoring the bust of an illegal casino operating in a house in San Leandro
- Traffic stop in Fremont that resulted in two officers being shot
Because of an earlier public protest against about ACSO’s acquisition of a drone, Madigan noted that there was a public misconception about the type drones being used by the law enforcement agency. Often the imagined technology is a large, military drone, as oppose to the reality that they are small UAVs with limited capabilities, deployed only in limited emergency situations.
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