Overland Park PD launches a transparency dashboard to build community trust
Overland Park PD launched a public transparency dashboard, giving residents access to drone flight data as a means of building community trust in their DFR program. Anyone can use this dashboard to see when a drone was launched and why. From a missing person search to a gas leak response, it’s all documented and searchable on the dashboard.
- You hear the buzz, look up, and see a drone,
- and then maybe think to yourself, "I
- wonder who's flying it?"
- Well, now in Overland Park, you might be able to find out.
- Police just launched a flight tracker that shows every drone's
- path in real time. KCTV 5's Betsy Webster shows
- us how it works.
- Are you old enough to remember back in the day when you would hear or see a chopper
- overhead, and you could be pretty well assured it
- was gonna be police or a medevac
- flight. But with drones, you don't know who's watching anymore,
- except here in
- Overland Park, where you can now check for yourself.
- This video shows one use of the drone in action, a suspected car prowler
- found hiding on a patio late last month after a search.
- Night vision captured the arrest.
- This is a Leawood PD drone assisting, but Overland Park's own drone
- was part of the
- search, too, which is why you can find
- that very call on the tracking
- site. I searched the date, August 30th, and found the call for an auto
- burglary. The flight path lit up, heading to 104th and
- Kansa.
- People would call the police department saying, "There's a drone that's above.
- I don't know if it belongs to you guys," things of that sort.
- That's one reason they pulled back the curtain with the webpage, showing
- deployments from both of their two launch sites.
- People get a little nervous when they see drones. We get it.
- Uh, matter of fact, I was on my deck not too long ago,
- and all of a sudden I saw a drone fly over.
- And I looked up, and I'm like, "Who is that hovering over me?
- This is weird." So basically, I went inside.
- Now, he could check online to see if it's safe to come back out,
- because it's
- not always a perp they're looking for.
- In July, they launched the drone to find a missing
- child.
- The website gives a reason for each launch, like missing person,
- theft in progress, gas leak. All of those are examples that
- were logged on the site
- in just the past three days.
- We just want people to know, uh, when they see a drone in the air,
- if it's ours,
- it's, uh, it's also theirs, because it's a community thing.
- If you wanna check it out and bookmark the site,
- just go to this story in the KCTV
- 5 News app to find a link. In Overland Park, Kansas, Betsy
- Webster, KCTV 5 News.
Watch Time
1 Mins 58 Secs