OKCPD's drone initiative – the future of first response
Oklahoma City Police Department has long been a pioneer in the Patrol-Led Deployment of drones. Hear Captain Bussert and Sergeant Laporte discuss how small Uncrewed Aircraft Systems (sUAS) are making a difference by keeping their community safer, de-escalating potentially dangerous situations, and providing greater transparency.
- [rock music]
- The drones as a whole, especially for our department, has
- been a night and day difference.
- They are used daily in multiple divisions, in multiple
- shifts.
- My name's Dax Laporte. Been a police officer with Oklahoma City
- for
- approximately 26 and a half years now.
- Every tool's a piece to the puzzle on how do I keep the community safe.
- I'm Jason Bussert. I'm the captain over IT here at Oklahoma
- City Police
- Department.
- Being able to talk to the community and going,
- "This is what we're doing to help
- you all," it's putting the right people in the right situations with the right
- information so that we have better outcomes.
- Whenever we're getting them initially trained, you try and introduce
- them to as much as possible, and so they get
- classroom setting, stick time setting to
- comfortably prepare them while out on patrol.
- We have people who need air support immediately.
- If someone's injured and they need help and we can't find them,
- seconds matter.
- It's an amplifier of the manpower that we have on the streets,
- so they know where
- the person is. They can see it as they arrive,
- because we have live view
- live-streaming. Talking with the team, talking with the officers in the field,
- they
- went, "We really just want one in our hands."
- And that made sense to me.
- Oklahoma City's been fortunate enough to do the patrol-led deployment,
- where we've been able to put multiple cases in patrol cars out on the
- streets at any given time.
- We've been called here today for a suspect in the woods.
- Ran from officers.
- Gonna deploy the drone.
- My name is Sergeant Cameron Kyle. I'm a patrol officer with Spring Lake
- Division.
- Day-to-day agenda is patrol, respond to dangerous situations,
- and deploy a drone if needed.
- What's good about Skydio is the use of it is very easy.
- Let's stand clear, make sure everything's safe.
- Deploying the drone would be a little more officer safety, just in case he's hiding
- behind a tree, behind some bushes, or up in a tree.
- Without using a drone, we would have the perimeter set up.
- An officer would go with K9, and that could take hours searching a field
- this size.
- This is quick, and it's another tool for the officers to
- use.
- I'm recording this whole incident.
- Yeah, you can zoom in pretty close.
- During the wintertime, this thing will pick up excellent.
- You'll see his footprints walking out to it. It's pretty cool.
- Is that him right there?
- Yeah, we got him.
- We got him.
- We got him.
- We can get K9.
- [intense music] Go straight west, and you'll run into him.
- Oklahoma City Police Department K9 Unit. Come out now or you will be bit.
- When K9 starts walking, we'll stay with him. We're looking.
- If we see something ahead of him, we're gonna notify them so they know what
- to
- expect.
- I mean,
- right now we'd be radioing straight ahead.
- K9 unit is arriving on scene.
- Find him.
- Oh, oh, oh.
- Oh, God.
- And he just bit him.
- Hold him, buddy.
- [dog growling] Hold him. Billy, out. Heel.
- We'll normally trail them until they get back.
- After that, we come back and land, and it'll automatically
- upload to Skydio and Axon. Um, and then we just knock out a report
- of what we did.
- My goal for Oklahoma City is to have the technology
- working for the officers and not the officers working for
- technology.
- Everything in my ecosystem has to work together.
- We have to look at really what helps the community and what helps keep our
- officers safer.
- A lot of the technological advancements that we've
- made has been Captain Bussert, my direct captain,
- his ability to think outside the box.
- What can I do to the police department right now that is gonna leave
- it in a better position not when I leave, but five and 10
- years down the road after I've already left?
- We've done the drone in the trunk, and they've been incredibly effective.
- We've had so many success stories with this.
- To be able to tie that into DFR, Drones as a First Responder,
- having drones on top of buildings that can respond to a call without
- an officer. Now we've increased the availability for
- officers for
- situations that they really need to be hands-on.
- That's my vision for the next step. That's where we're headed.
- We have to look at does this help our officers? Does this help our community?
- This vision does.
- We got a drone in the area now. Seen somewhere.
- Oklahoma City Police Department.
Watch Time
4 Mins 46 Secs