Drone clears recovered stolen vehicle in Flagler County
Officers are put into high-risk situations everyday in their standard operations. Flagler County Sheriff’s Office explains how they are using drones to help mitigate risk during traffic stops and for stolen vehicles calls with patrol-led Drone as First Responder (DFR).
Watch this video interview with Commander Dopp as he discusses footage from a stolen vehicle call and why drones were vital to the success of his agency’s response.
- [beep] Plug in any available unit.
- Signal 95, reference a LPR hit for a signal
- 10, northbound US 1 from Plantation
- Bay. It's gonna be on a yellow Penske rental
- truck.
- So in that incident, we had an indication from one of our LPR
- systems that there
- was a stolen vehicle traveling northbound into our county on US 1.
- [radio beeps]
- 37 on scene, felony stop in progress.
- Copy.
- Deputies located the truck and conducted a high-risk stop on it.
- Turn off the car and stick your hands out the window.
- 112, flagger on scene at location of the
- touchdowns.
- Copy.
- Follow all the commands you are given.
- Step out of the car with your hands up.
- Sheriff's on K9. If you run, you will be bit.
- They called the driver out of the vehicle, who complied and came back to us.
- He was taken into custody.
- Walk backwards until I tell you to stop.
- Keep walking back.
- 112 trying to get an ID on you.
- Gabe, you got anybody over there with you?
- Keep walking back.
- I do not.
- All right.
- Occupants of the truck,
- make yourself known. Do it now.
- Seth, what's the brief on occupants?
- One.
- Just one?
- Yeah.
- Got it. But we couldn't see into the cab of the
- truck to make sure that there were
- no other suspects waiting in the cab to ambush our deputies.
- So typically in a scenario like that, we get a team together, we approach
- the vehicle behind maybe a shield or some form of cover,
- and you just don't really
- know what you're walking into. So with a drone on scene there, I
- was able to launch
- the drone in a matter of seconds.
- Yeah, go ahead.
- Uh, you want me to fly it? You give me 10 seconds and just hold it.
- All right.
- [drone whirring]
- We can see anything with the drone in the air?
- Negative, I don't see the pilot. [radio beeps] 37, UAV is launching now.
- UAV is launching now.
- The drone can be deployed in probably 30 seconds or less, and look into the cab
- through the open door and through the windshield, and I
- was able to clear the
- majority of the cab. That certainly gives us a,
- a more confident vantage point to
- know that we're not walking into an ambush.
- We're almost there. Deputy, gas.
- [beep]
- It looks clear. I just can't see-
- Copy
- ... the floorboards.
- Do you guys wanna go ahead and make an approach?
- I can get out of the way.
- Copy.
- Front is clear. We're checking the back.
- I've asked our pilots to be creative in the ways that they're using the drones to
- make their fellow deputies safe. So if there's a way
- that we can use a drone to
- get a tactical advantage, to get a vantage point
- that we wouldn't otherwise get,
- or to clear an area, a building, a vehicle, that we, we don't have to
- send our deputies into an unknown situation, I encourage them all the time
- to, to use the drones, to, to be creative about when
- and where they're deploying it
- to make sure we're keeping ourselves and the community
- safe.
- [drone whirring] [upbeat music]
Watch Time
2 Mins 49 Secs