How OKCPD paved the path to Drone as First Responder | Skydio Ascend '24
Hear how OKCPD started on their drone as first responder (DFR) journey with a method known as Patrol-Led Deployment, enabling patrol officers to activate drones for rapid response to calls-in-progress – with sights on adding automated Dock-based DFR as they build out their program. This forward-thinking law enforcement agency is paving the way for other agencies to build drone programs at scale, gain actionable insights from aerial intelligence, and increase safety for first responders and the communities they serve.
Learn more about Skydio Drone as First Responder (DFR).
- [upbeat music]
- All right, everyone. I know we have some more people funneling
- in, and we're
- bringing chairs for those of you in the back. But welcome.
- Um, hope you all enjoyed the keynote.
- My name is Noreen Charlton, and I lead Public Safety Strategy
- and Marketing here at
- Skydio.
- Uh, really excited today to have OKC PD in the
- house
- to talk about their, uh, path to drone as first responder.
- They have been a customer of Skydio for many years now, um, and have
- really led the way in what we call patrol-led deployments.
- But they have in recent months, in the last year, moved
- into a patrol-led drone as first responder when we introduced X2,
- and then moving into dock-based drone as first responder as well.
- So I'm going to bring them up here to introduce themselves, and, uh,
- we will have a Q&A session at the end, so if you have any questions,
- just go on and
- hold onto those for me. We are live streaming this as well,
- so we'll just
- make sure that when we do the Q&A, we make sure you have a mic so
- that everybody
- can hear your question on the live stream.
- So with that said, gentlemen, you want to come up?
- Great. Thank you.
- It's not like you haven't heard from me already a lot, but I'm Jason Bussert,
- captain over IT for Oklahoma City Police Department,
- and been doing over IT since about 2013.
- Uh,
- and we got in the drone space, you heard that at the keynote.
- Um, but what I didn't say is, uh, as we, as I was doing
- this, I went out to my pod of people who work
- with me and work for me,
- said, "Hey, anybody familiar with drones?
- Uh, you know, do y'all know anything?" And Dax went,
- "Kinda." Uh-
- My, my exact answer was, "They fly?"
- Yeah.
- So-
- You're it. [laughs] You lead the way.
- But, uh, it's been good. Uh, and Dax likes to
- talk. I really don't, so you're gonna hear a lot from him.
- Uh,
- yeah, it's still morning, so good morning.
- Uh, Dax Laporte, Oklahoma City Police Department,
- just shy of 28
- years now. I've been in the police IT for
- going on right at 12 years, so I was there just a little bit before Captain
- Bussert,
- Captain Bussert came over-
- Wow [laughs]
- ... to, uh... [laughs] Well, I hear too many people
- call you on the phone a- and use that terminology.
- Um,
- but as Captain Bussert said, you know, once this
- became available and an option to us, uh, we kind of
- tag-teamed projects within our office.
- He said, "It's yours." And what he didn't know at the time
- is in high
- school I did my ground school, I did my private pilot's with the intent
- of flying.
- Um,
- OU ROTC changed my mind on that whenever they said, "Fall
- of '91, if you're not an Air Force Academy
- graduate, you're not flying." So I
- went a different route and have enjoyed my career in law
- enforcement.
- So having that background helped me be
- able to get things started and have the mindset of, of, you
- know,
- what drones do, what they're capable of.
- And, and being able to employ them actually
- into our department,
- uh, is just pure luck, um,
- the way that we've been able to manage things.
- Uh, we are extremely fortunate, and
- we have had, and, and I hope that it remains this way,
- we've have support from the top down.
- Uh, we just had a chief that retired that was very, very
- tech-driven, and, um, you know, he,
- he would bring ideas to our office, or Captain Bussert would bring ideas to
- him. If it had anything to do with tech, he's like, "Go for it."
- Um, and so that's
- bringing us into December of '21. We took
- delivery of 16 Skydio drones, Sky-
- 16 Skydio X2 drones.
- And although I'm the voice
- and, uh, managing the program, the original
- concept is truly Captain Bussert's, uh, vision.
- Um, as he said in the keynote, you know, there's a lot of agencies that have drone
- units, and, you know, I commend y'all for that.
- Uh, if you're trying to get into the space
- and that's all you have at the
- time, by all means, go for it. Don't s- don't sell yourself
- short, and don't... Take, take advantage of everything that you can,
- that you can get ahold of.
- But our patrol-led model, again,
- was Captain Bussert's mindset. It's
- the officers that are stirring the stuff up that need the
- help are already on the scene. So it only makes
- sense to take that Pelican case, put it in the trunk with the officer,
- send them out into patrol because, as I just mentioned, either they are
- the ones stirring the stuff up or they are their district and
- sector partners. Terminology changes within agencies.
- But they're the ones that are coming to back up the officers, and
- therefore, you have drones
- on scene within a matter of moments.
- Uh, we're fortunate enough that we do have an air support unit.
- We have three helicopters.
- But they don't work 24 hours a day, seven days a week as
- of now. That's changing. But even whenever they do work,
- those that are familiar with the air support units,
- if the weather's bad like this, they're not getting up.
- Uh, you know, they do a phenomenal job for us.
- I will never discredit them.
- But they're, they have their limitations
- that with the drone
- space you can get around some of those.
- Um, you know, if they're just arriving to work,
- they have to pull the
- aircraft out, they have to do a pre-flight,
- they have to do...
- get the engines, uh, spun up, they have to get clearance for takeoff,
- and
- then they have to get to where that scene is.
- That is at least 20 to 25 minutes.
- Um, I, I can't remember if Jason mentioned it or not,
- but we're a city
- of 620 square miles. Our helicopter unit's pretty
- centrally located, but if it's on the outer perimeters of our
- city, you know, you may be closer to 30 minutes before
- they
- can respond, so.
- And, and those who've had helicopter units,
- I mean, it was a bit of a challenge at
- first. Uh, there's, you know, fear and misunderstanding on h-
- how to work together. But we've resolved
- that over the last several years, and we
- actually work really well together now.
- And, and part of the patrol-led model is the
- officers in the field work together all the time, so, you know, they
- trust each other. So when one of them, their partner's watching overhead, there's
- a lot of trust there saying, "Hey, yeah, you need to make sure you go left, go
- left, go left." They, they, they, they listen and understand,
- and they know each
- other's capabilities and how to put the right people in the
- right positions to do,
- to do the job the right way.
- So with the patrol-led model, uh, we're split up into four patrol
- divisions. Springlake in the northeast, Hefner in the northwest,
- southwest in the southwest, and then Santa Fe in the southeast
- part of the city. Uh, our patrol divisions
- are three shifts each, so four patrol divisions,
- three shifts each,
- that's 12 drones that are on each shift at each division
- at any given time during the day that are constantly out on the
- streets.
- Um, as I mentioned, we started off with, uh, 16
- in, in our original purchase. Uh, we
- acquired an additional one or two.
- I think that may be supposed to be 18-
- Yeah, it was 17
- ... but we'll go with 17,
- um, for our undercover units. Our original
- deployments were, as I mentioned, one per shift per
- division in patrol, so that's 12.
- Um, I am also on the crisis negotiating unit,
- so
- I kept one with me from a program managing standpoint
- doing the software/firmware updates, making sure that everything is
- doing what Skydio says it does, and then sending out the information to
- the other
- pilots to get those drones updated.
- Uh, I put one in our VCAT, uh, which is, uh,
- some may call it a gang unit. It used to be our gang unit.
- They did a rebranding and a, and a name change, but the
- Violent Crime Apprehension Team.
- Um, I put one in our reality-based training
- unit, so
- it's an extension of our training center, our in-service training.
- They formulate training for the officers to get our
- in-service hours, but also having them, you
- know, with the mindset of drones are coming to the officers, drones
- are... the officers are going to start using the, uh,
- the drones more,
- incorporating in-services using the drone, and then
- also the obvious of being able to film different
- aspects and uploading the video. And then the final one,
- uh, if my math is right, in our special events unit.
- So those that manage, um, the parades, the large
- parades throughout the city. The, the,
- um, whenever the, our Oklahoma City Thunder make the
- playoffs, they manage the Thunder in the Park,
- the pre-game
- festivities and stuff like that. But whatever type of duties that
- special events has typically brings large amounts of
- people, and so therefore having the eyes in the
- sky and the
- overwatch, uh, I just thought it made sense to include
- them.
- So
- from December of '21, whenever we went live to present,
- these stats,
- um, I updated to Ms. Noreen probably about a week ago.
- So but as you can see, we fly and we
- fly and we fly. Um,
- in just shy of three years, we've flown 4,700 flights.
- We've accumulated 950 hours. We average 4.7
- flights per day, 12.1 minutes per flight,
- and each pilot has an average of about 10 hours of flight
- time per pilot.
- Um,
- we do our pilot training in-house.
- Um, we did kind of a soft launch, what, what I call a soft launch in
- December of '21.
- I mean, once you buy 16 drones, it's not a trial any
- longer. I mean
- [laughs] you, you, uh... But we only trained about
- 20 people. That's why I call it a soft launch.
- And, and so
- within
- December to March the 2nd,
- those original 12 in patrol,
- you know, the original 16 that were designated to have the
- Pelican cases hung on to them full time.
- So we didn't have full-time coverage throughout the city, throughout all of the
- divisions. But again, I call it a soft launch, and, and we
- built upon that. And we built upon that,
- uh, very quickly. Um,
- it's not in this presentation, but it's, it's important to s- to speak
- about that, like, what really blew up our program so
- fast.
- Uh, March the 2nd of 2022, we had an officer
- respond to just a general disturbance call.
- I mean, the, the officers, the law enforcement in here, past,
- present,
- you understand this, you respond to these calls all the time.
- Um,
- the officer finds the suspect that he's looking for walking down the
- road, gets out of his car, approaches him,
- and, uh, as he's talking to him,
- the suspect is bladed to him.
- He's, he comes up on him. The suspect is bladed to him.
- He's like, he's trying to generate some conversation,
- trying to get some
- information out of him. Um,
- realizes he's kind of acting kind of weird.
- I'm, my training and experience is going to kick in.
- This guy needs to go in handcuffs. We're going to continue this in another
- fashion.
- Hey, while I talk to you, you mind if I...
- I'm gonna pat you down, put you in handcuffs." The guy pulled out
- a gun and
- shot the officer in the leg. So,
- uh, gunfight ensued. Suspect ran off,
- continued to, to, uh, to exchange gunfire.
- Uh, the officer, realizing the suspect was far enough away,
- realized his injuries. He disengaged.
- He put a tourniquet on himself, called for help, and this is where
- the patrol led deployment, like, truly took off for us.
- So we are literally two and a half months into
- our soft launch,
- and we had an officer-involved shooting.
- He's struck in a gunfight for his life, calling for help.
- Within less than five minutes, we literally had two of our
- drones in the air looking for this suspect that just tried to
- kill one of our officers. They find him in the backyard.
- One of the TAC team operators, uh, did a phenomenal job.
- Um, this, at the time, until we get to this,
- was literally one of my favorite calls a- that we've done.
- Um, TAC team operator was one of the original 20
- trained. He was able to put a stack of officers
- together in front of the house. This is early technology for Skydio,
- so they did not have the live streaming capabilities at this point in time.
- He shows the controller to the stack, "Here is the suspect.
- Here is his positioning. Here is his, uh...
- There are no weapons seen."
- And
- walks them across the front of the house. They make a left-hand turn. They...
- Continually giving the stack verbal updates,
- allowing them to slow down.
- Allowing them to, uh,
- be well-informed coming into a situation,
- coming into a suspect that just tried to kill one of us,
- and constantly getting them updates,
- slowing them down
- till they make that last corner. Right before they make the last corner of
- the
- house, again, "His hands are here. His legs are here.
- There's no weapons seen." That group of six officers round
- the corner. They're able to take the suspect into
- custody,
- get him the medical care that he needed, and he ended up
- expiring. But... And our officer is fine.
- But, you know, in the law enforcement community
- especially, there
- is so much emphasis on de-escalation.
- And, you know, take that one step further
- of, you know, that's what the public wants the police to
- do,
- but the police
- want to be able to
- not only keep ourselves safe, but we sign
- up to keep the community safe, too.
- No matter if they tried to kill us,
- we're signed up to take care of that responsibility.
- And, you know, not to say that it would've been done in this
- situation, but there are situations, you know, the
- energy is, is extremely rampant. The,
- the... Y- you've got so much going on. You're...
- You wanna get around to that suspect, and you come around that corner
- and you interpret something that could be perceived as a
- weapon, and we shoot that person. Or, and in any
- situation similar to this,
- an officer-involved shooting occurs,
- but there is no weapon. There was no justification for that shooting.
- So being able to deploy the drones,
- being able to have that i- you know, the technology, we'll, we'll
- fast-forward to today, you have that live streaming capability
- that you're streaming that information back
- to everybody that needs to have those informed
- decisions. And, um, it's been
- extremely, extremely beneficial to us.
- So we've operated off of that until
- last ascent, essentially. And now then we're
- moving to a kind of a DFR function.
- Uh, you know, again, I give the credit to Captain Busser.
- The
- patrol-led model,
- um, has been very successful.
- Uh, working with Skydio, being able to have the, the
- relationships and the conversations.
- And once they introduce us to the X2 Dock,
- Captain Busser said,
- "There's no reason that we can't cover our entire city with
- this." You know,
- drone as a first responder is designed to help supplement the short-
- the staffing shortages that you have,
- but it's also designed to, you know, again, from a,
- the law enforcement, uh, crowd, you know, how many times do you
- respond to this particular location over and over and
- over on the same type of call, the same type of people,
- and by the time that you get there, nothing's going on?
- You, you've... But you have to respond.
- So therefore, being able to incorporate the, the docks
- once we were incor- given this information, coming up with
- the mindset of
- we're gonna start using the docks to supplement the officers.
- And if we can fly a drone in a dock
- to this call, definitively be able to clear this call,
- and clear that officer to go take a
- call of priority, then that drone has absolutely done its job.
- A- and we didn't do it just for police.
- Yeah. Yeah.
- Uh, there... Your fire department can use these drones
- just as effectively
- to see what's going on with the fire, how many engines they need to see, is, is
- there really a fire there, what's the situation before they get there
- so they have
- the right resources. So we've, I've partnered, we've partnered with
- our fire department, and we're equal partners in this, half
- and half.
- Uh, they're gonna be able to use them just as
- much as us.
- They have guys who we've trained to be able to fly remotely, so
- they have the tools and the buy-in.
- And it's always nice to run the fire department out in front of council, 'cause
- everybody loves fire.
- [laughs]
- And, and, a- and it just makes life easier for us.
- But it's also, it's a great partnership we have with
- them.
- So I've pretty well covered the patrol lead deployment.
- I'm a little bit out of order with her slides-
- [laughs]
- ... but I just want to, you know, make sure I get the point across to you
- guys.
- Um,
- and it's been mentioned over, and over, and over, the,
- the autonomy of the Skydio drones.
- And, you know, whenever we were given that option, we
- tested it. Jason made the... Captain Buzzard made the purchase.
- You know,
- the emphasis is, for us from the law enforcement side is,
- yes, this is another tool in the officer's tool
- belt,
- but
- they need to focus on being police first-
- Yeah
- ... and not having to worry about being these
- experienced drone pilots.
- Yes, they need to, to know enough and be smart enough to operate the drone,
- follow the rules, the FAA guidelines, the COAs, all of that.
- But their main goal at that point in time
- is getting the drone up in the
- air to get that overwatch, to get that search started
- or something along those
- lines. Let the drone work for the officer.
- And in that situation, it- it's not just a remote pilot in an
- office. Our officers can help each other out.
- From their MBC, they can fly the, the drone, uh, 30 miles away to
- help officers who just had somebody run from them and threw the drone up, and
- they're chasing the guy. And so, the, you have that partnership when our
- RD's not available.
- Yeah. And incorporating the live streaming,
- you know, as I mentioned earlier, being
- able to allow us to slow down. Um, being on the crisis
- negotiation unit, if we're on a full tac team call-out, tac
- team shows up, bomb squad shows up, the crisis unit shows up.
- You know, even though I'm technically on the crisis
- negotiation
- unit, my role over the last, well, since we've had the
- Xtends especially, is transitioning more to as soon as
- I'm there,
- getting a drone in the air, having the, uh...
- We're fully integrated with Axon, so having the Axon
- respond to where the tac team commanders can pull that up and be
- able to assess, and the overall situation
- from the air, adding, uh,
- additional resources that they can make informed decisions to
- manage this
- call-out.
- So we always like to include some real-life examples.
- Um, you know, I- I ga- I walked you verbally through one.
- Well, this is one that you can actually see. Uh,
- larceny of an auto.
- Female stole the vehicle, got into a seven-minute slow-speed
- pursuit.
- Immediately once the drone w- or immediately once the vehicle stopped,
- again, the drone was already in the trunk of the
- car of one of the
- officers directly in for the pursuit.
- We don't have to wait for our air support to get there, where if,
- in this case, it wasn't in that officer's trunk,
- you know, an officer's in pursuit, the, everybody's heading that way,
- so it's gonna
- be there in a matter of moments.
- So he deploys the drone.
- And again, the de-escalation, slowing people,
- slowing your actions down, slowing the situation down,
- and using the tools available to you to be able to
- make well-informed decisions. So in this
- particular instance,
- we're gonna probably lean towards a consumer.
- I mean,
- yes, there is a... In the state of Oklahoma, it
- is a felony to steal a car
- but, you know, you, you have the offense of, of larceny of an
- auto.
- But once you deploy that drone... And, and so
- let me back up for a minute. You know, 20, almost 28 years ago, whenever I hit the
- streets, so our uniforms are opposite of this.
- Our, our shirts are about this color, our pants are this color.
- You know, at the end of a pursuit, we're the gray tornadoes.
- It's how many officers can get up to that car, get their hands on the suspect,
- get him out, get him into custody,
- and on their way to jail.
- Over the years, everybody has learned that those tactics are
- incorrect. Officers are getting hurt. Suspects are getting hurt.
- There's better ways of doing thing.
- So now then, we would work this as a barricaded
- suspect.
- And
- no better way than deploy a drone to see what this
- barricaded suspect's body language is.
- Are there any weapons?
- In this particular instance, there, there were not, so they were able
- to, uh, walk up with a, a ballistic shield,
- break the back window, get the door unlocked,
- get the front door unlocked, get the
- person into custody.
- But, you know, again, just the way that we were able to use the tools
- available to us.
- And we partner with our, our, our helicopter unit in these situations as
- well.
- They have overwatch on the pursuit, but they can't see in the car like a
- drone can. So it...
- Do- Using both tools is effective.
- Okay. As I mentioned earlier, the officer-involved shooting call
- happened to be my
- favorite call, not because the officer got shot,
- not because the suspect-
- Yeah, it's sort of twisted, but, uh, [laughs]
- It, it's-
- [laughs]
- ... it's the way that we were able to use the tools
- and the resources for,
- uh, the overall outcome. And, and also, like I said, this is
- truly... That particular call is truly what
- accelerated, um, our
- e- experiences, our involvement, e- everything that
- amplified from that particular call.
- But this one now is my favorite call.
- Um, 911 call. Subject calls in on himself.
- He is in a cemetery. He has a handgun.
- He's going to kill himself,
- "And I'm going to kill myself as soon as I see that first officer."
- So, um,
- we have
- Tinker Air Force Base that's down in the sewer- southeast
- section of Oklahoma City.
- This was a-
- Directly across the street from the south fence line of Tinker, and
- just a little bit to the east, uh, I believe.
- The officers recog-
- At the, at the end of the runway.
- Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- That was-
- At the... Directly at the end of one of the runways.
- Um, the officers,
- uh,
- get called to this.
- Drone, uh, is responding.
- Um,
- while they're out there, they call me.
- They're like, "What do we do?" I'm like, "You call Tinker." Uh,
- I'll Google the phone number right now, but, "You call Tinker Tower and s- tell
- them you have an emergency, that you're requesting to put a drone up,
- and, uh, what's the worst they can tell you
- is no." And so
- we did. We, we called Tinker Tower.
- We said, uh,
- "Hey,
- we have an attempt suicide. We have a person threatening to shoot
- himself once the police are visible.
- Uh, you know,
- would you mind suspending air operations?
- You allow us to put a drone up to handle this call?" "Man,
- do whatever you need. Just call us when you're done." "Sweet.
- Thanks."
- Um, can you re-loop that, uh, please?
- But in this particular instance,
- um,
- the officers recognized that the cemetery is a wide open
- area. And so as you can see, everything along Southeast
- 74th Street, I know it doesn't mean anything to y'all,
- but a major
- east-west street is Southeast 74th.
- Once the officer pulls up
- and clears that tree line,
- the suspect has told you what he wants to do, so therefore, they
- parked literally a quarter of a mile away.
- I looked at the flight logs. They flew, like, almost 1,500 feet to get to the
- cemetery.
- Stayed at the major intersection,
- flew the drone, found him. So either the primary
- officer or one of the, the officers on the call...
- So the guy called in on himself. She got the call, the cell phone
- number off of the CAD call. Called the guy, was able to build a
- rapport, have a conversation with this guy, did a
- phenomenal job, and in the meantime,
- um,
- our,
- uh, crisis supervisor said, "Hey,
- patrol's working attempt suicide.
- Can we get a couple negotiators to head that way?"
- A couple of us headed out that way.
- At this point in time, you're... She's already developed the rapport.
- She's already got the dialogue going. We're not gonna step in
- and interrupt that.
- We're just there to help coach and stand by at, at that point in time.
- She was able to convince him to surrender,
- and in doing... or to do so, we told him, "We
- know that you have a gun. We want to see you place it on top of
- that car."
- He, he complies. "Man, thank you. You know, we're, we're here
- to help you. We're gonna get you all the help
- that you want.
- Um, just for our safety and yours, lift your shirt
- up.
- Just lift your shirt up to your waistband. Do a 360.
- Let us make sure that you have no further weapons on you."
- He complies.
- He does exactly what he's asked to do. "Man, thank you.
- You know, what we need for you to do now
- is just walk down
- to the end of the road. I'm on the phone with you.
- I'm gonna meet you down there." And a whole carload, I don't know
- where it cut off, but carload of, uh, four officers pull up.
- One of them deploys with the shield. They get out.
- Uh, the guy salutes the drone.
- They get him in custody, get him the, the consumer mental health
- care that he needs.
- I mean, the, the guy, like Adam said this morning,
- you're finding instances where suspects, consumers,
- are surrendering to drones. I mean, you, you can't make this
- up. If it's not, you know, in a video format that you can
- replay, you know, you try and tell this story and you're like, "Psh,
- nobody...
- No, they didn't."
- Yeah.
- But yeah, that, that's the,
- the, um, the results that we're able to get.
- So we're moving from
- the patrol-led model to a patrol-led D- DFR.
- Now then, the next couple of steps are as hybrid as hybrid can
- get.
- Um, whenever I mentioned that Skydio
- mentioned the X2 Dock to us,
- uh, we're like, "Let's test it." I mean, you're, you're bringing a product to us.
- We're gonna test it. We're gonna put it to our...
- put it through its paces.
- And,
- um,
- can you go back? I'm sorry.
- Uh, our state fair is usually about the second week of
- September,
- and, um, every year, same amount of people, same
- location, sa- same amount of days.
- Let's use the,
- uh, hybrid mesh and hybrid method of DFR to
- patrol the
- state fair.
- So we set up two docks on top of the Safety and Security Center.
- We set up, uh, remote ops inside the Safety and Security
- Center.
- Uh, Skydio helped us get a regulatory...
- Skydio Regulatory helped us get a COA particularly for this,
- where we got a two-mile radius around the dock,
- and in layman's terms, it said sparsely populated visual
- observers.
- I interpreted that as the officers that I have working the fair,
- walking around
- this square mile are now my sparsely populated visual
- observers, and we ran with it. Nobody from the FA in here, right?
- All right.
- [laughing] So-
- No, we fully trained them. They were all, all up to speed.
- [laughs]
- They, they knew what they were doing.
- [laughs]
- We, uh, it- Captain Bussard is, uh,
- legitimately correct. At the beginning of each of the fair
- lineups, we explain to
- them, "Hey, we're having... This is a trial.
- We're doing drone ops.
- Um, whenever we say we're deploying a drone,
- you know, if whatever
- quadrant you're in, you know, start looking around.
- Be an extra set of eyes." So we did brief them.
- Um,
- so
- we ran the fair, uh, 2023.
- Um, 11 days,
- 86 calls for service, seven missing locates,
- missing adults, missing children, stuff like that.
- Um,
- you know, it was
- predominantly successful. So now then whenever I said we're running
- all
- hybrid of hybrid, we've got... We just finished the state fair on the
- September the 22nd.
- Well, it was successful, but it was challenging.
- Uh, the, the, the docks had trouble with the Wi-Fi
- interference.
- Yeah.
- And so we didn't have the level of patrols that we wanted to, that
- we were able to-
- Yeah
- ... this year. I mean, the, the X10s, night and day difference.
- But-
- Yeah
- ... I... There was a difference in quality of
- equipment.
- Yeah. A- absolutely. Um,
- we...
- Partnering with Skydio, having their, uh,
- their resources available to us, they said, "We
- have a Skydio representative that lives in Oklahoma.
- We're gonna test something that Adam alluded to this morning in the
- keynote of helping agencies, you know, that 30,
- that 60, that 90-day mark of having somebody on
- site." Well,
- we just piloted that and tested it.
- We had, um, one of the Skydio representatives on
- site,
- had a two-way radio system separate from the police
- radio. Uh,
- the officers would either see a call, hear a call, or just want to fly.
- They key up, tell, uh, Chris, "Hey, we're gonna fly."
- He powers it on, sets it outside, and now then we're flying X10, we're
- flying DFR. We're have all of the functionality,
- the live
- streaming back to the real-time information center, back
- to the state fair commanders. Um, who- whoever
- that needed or wanted to be able to see the feed had that
- capability.
- And they were flying from both the safety center and the real-time incident center.
- Yeah.
- And they would take each other over when they needed to and to hand off,
- and they
- were... Just coordinate the efforts-
- Right
- ... seamlessly.
- Right.
- Um, so our real-time information center is...
- It's beyond its,
- uh,
- uh,
- concept stage. It, it, it's functional.
- Uh, we're just not 24/7 yet. And until we get 24/7,
- as Captain Bussard mentioned, um, my
- objective is to put the majority of the flight time on them,
- um, because I look at it from... But we have the
- capabilities of any officer that's Part 107
- trained, that's been remote op trained, that's in our
- organization,
- that has a computer, that has an internet connection can be
- that remote op
- pilot. But
- I, I want to be careful with that, that the
- officer
- is in a safe, secure location whenever they stop
- to commandeer a drone because I don't want
- them focused h- here inside their car
- and, and lose track of, of what's around them.
- So my mindset is, is pushing the majority of the flying to
- the real-time
- information center, but that option is available to us should
- we need them.
- And our analysts are civilians who are flying these out of the Arctic a- and
- they've done a fantastic job. They've really bought into the concept.
- So one of our... I mean, the, I think the first
- one that I know of that we truly, truly used the full functionality
- of the X10, we used the full functionality of the
- real-time information
- center. We have an officer that is, uh,
- very proactive in his district. He recognizes there's a
- particular park that is known for criminal activity,
- gang activity.
- He parks his scout car probably four or five
- blocks away. He deploys the X10. He flies it
- over, and he's just doing a visual overwatch.
- And, uh, he... Something catches his eye.
- He's like, "Those two people are going to that car.
- I think I'm gonna try and get a traffic stop on that car."
- He calls the real-time information center, says, "Here's my serial number.
- Commandeer this drone.
- And I'm gonna get in my car. I'm gonna drive over
- to try and get a traffic stop."
- And he took it one step further that I thought was genius.
- I guess I...
- Maybe in the same situation I would've thought of it too, but I... Not for sure.
- But he made the additional comment to the
- real-time information center. He's like,
- "Number one, if I get probable cause, I'm making a traffic stop.
- If I get into a pursuit with this car,
- just go back to the building where I launched from. Put it on the roof.
- We'll get a fire truck to come get it later." Like, that's freaking genius.
- Um, but anyway, in this case, uh, the suspect
- stops
- and the, the drone is overhead the whole time while
- they make the traffic stop.
- They get the driver out, get him in custody, put him in the
- car.
- Uh, convicted felon in possession of a firearm
- off of this traffic stop.
- So here's the park that he's watching.
- So again, at some point in time, you know, I've seen this several times, but
- something, being proactive and knowing his district,
- something catches his
- eye. Um, he's like, "Man, I probably ought
- to make a traffic stop or see if I can find a, the probable cause to
- make a traffic stop on this car."
- And so, you know, it's about this time they're doing the
- handoff.
- The RTIC is
- taking over. He's jumping in his car, and he's following every
- speed limit, every traffic control device to, uh,
- get to this car that's going in the opposite direction of where he's coming
- from. But he does manage to catch up to him.
- And I really need to pull the report to see what his
- probable cause was, 'cause
- I just, I have the overview of it. I, I can't...
- I don't know what the probable cause was, but I do know
- that
- there's a convicted felon in possession of a firearm.
- So,
- you know, the Real-Time Information Center, it,
- they kind of condensed the video,
- but as they made that left-hand turn on the traffic stop,
- the
- RTIC kind of, uh, hangs a little bit left, cuts over the
- houses, makes a direct path to the cars.
- Um,
- once the traffic stop is complete, the suspect's in custody,
- so this officer is actually training a recruit in this,
- and, uh, they're kind of towards the final phase of
- training,
- I'm assuming, by the amount of distance.
- But at, once-
- [laughs]
- [laughs]
- Once, once the suspect is in custody, you saw him take the
- controller, and he re-commandeers it, and he lands it behind his car,
- get him in custody, and we go on.
- Um, now then,
- with the announcement of today, I mean, we were fortunate enough to,
- you know, as Adam mentioned, you know, they've had some X10 docks out in the
- wild. Uh, I don't remember the dates, but, um, they
- brought... And they were very, I will tell you, they were extremely
- hesitant to really do this. But they, they've,
- they're going through the paces to make their product better, and the only way
- that they can do it is, is to get it out there.
- So they brought us an X10 dock. We put it on top of our
- headquarters building, and Skydio
- literally, not slept, but they camped out on our headquarters
- roof for a, a Monday through Friday, and they
- put it through its paces. Said, "You know, anything around here that you want to
- see, what you want to do?" I'm like, "No, I just, I want you to fly it.
- I want you to..." You know, and they were testing the
- cellular. They were testing the, the Skydio Link.
- Um, and I think even at this point in time,
- they were testing the
- capabilities of what he was talking about, where it would mesh
- back and forth between cellular and Skydio Link to always maintain.
- Um, and so, you know, that's kind of where we're at.
- This was last year's stats. Uh, 341 flights,
- 435 acres.
- Um, you know, just shy of a million people in
- attendance.
- Um,
- so
- 2023, Saturday night, the last night of the fair,
- some
- person,
- uh,
- decided to somehow or another sneak a gun into the fair.
- You can see everybody running. But the, the whole backstory of it
- is, uh,
- it, it came out as a, an active threat, a, an active shooter.
- It turned out to be just a, a
- banger-on-banger crime. But, you know, you don't know that at the time.
- Um, you know, being able to have the, the,
- the remote flight capabilities, being able to, to
- expand the use of the dock in that scenario.
- Uh, here's the dock testing
- whenever they camped out on top of our headquarters.
- And in this year's stats, it was 130-
- Hundred
- ... 129 flights and 32 hours of flight time,
- so they were
- used quite often.
- Yeah. Um, and, and you
- know, Jason already made the statement,
- but, you know, 100 and something flights, 32 hours,
- um, over 11 days.
- Uh, 41 patrol, extra patrols, 13 disturbances,
- 13 missing.
- Um, they located a traffic collision.
- Um, they located an assault, domestics.
- But one of the things that, that Captain Bussard
- alluded to in the, in the keynote is
- this is the first year... I mean, we, we have a significant incident
- that they post every day, and, and they did a s-
- fair summary that
- there were no auto burglaries and no stolen vehicles that
- occurred during the fair, and some of that is
- contributed to, you know, if you have not flown the Skydio
- X10 and you have not flown it with the visible
- NightSense,
- um, they know it's there. And to the extent
- of when I'm flying on a tact team call-out, I'm at 150 feet in
- the air, and I'm orbiting or manually
- flying this location, and I have the tact team...
- You know, whenever we say we have the house
- surrounded, we have the house
- surrounded, and the tact team operators in the
- backyard are like, "Who's flying the
- drone? You're lighting us up."
- [laughs]
- I'm, I'm
- at 150 feet, and the tact team operators
- are saying that they're lit up.
- So as they're doing these patrols and the extra patrols, and you've got this
- white light that's just zipping all around through the parking lot,
- they know it's there, and I absolutely contribute it to
- the, the deterrence of this year.
- That's it for me.
- We have like three minutes, so-
- Yeah
- ... let's, let's get to questions.
- Yeah. Does anyone have any questions?
- I'll just come over with the mic so that we can catch you on the live stream.
- Yeah.
- Oh, dang. [laughs]
- Just on the comment you made about the tack team, I am curious, when you started
- integrating drone response, how did you introduce it to patrol,
- um, or overcome like maybe any resistance to
- people who didn't
- understand the capabilities or the possibilities with the drone
- response?
- From,
- from the patrol side of it, uh, I, I think there's two
- questions. I understand it as two questions.
- But from the patrol side of it,
- yes, most of the pilots that we selected are of the
- younger generation.
- Um, uh, eh, but you know, one of the things that I've mentioned ear-
- not here, but in other speeches,
- the... Like I've got almost 28 years on and,
- you know, I'm in
- the IT world, so I'm a little bit different.
- But there's other officers that are out of my class that still work
- patrol that have only done patrol their entire life,
- and it's like, "Well, that's not how we do it.
- They were doing it this way. We've done it this way forever."
- They embr- they actually embrace it.
- It may have been a little bit slower, but
- one of the, the slides in there, you know, recognizing the benefits,
- they truly have embraced and they recognize the
- benefits of,
- man, I could really use it. My, my old knees, my belly,
- I'm not running after them. Get me a drone. Let's go chase this.
- Let's go look for this guy. So in that aspect of it, yes.
- You know, it's not by design. Um, we don't know the
- pilots, uh, the... We have the division majors send us names,
- and then we train them off of that. Um, so it, it's not by
- design that we don't select
- one demographic over another. It just happens to be that way.
- But the older generation does embrace it.
- And from the tack team side of it,
- we've, we have Brink Lemurs, so they already had...
- They, they had a DJI that they, um, crashed
- into a tree.
- Um-
- And didn't get fixed.
- Yeah. [laughs]
- [laughs]
- Uh, but, so they had a DJI, uh, Mavic 2
- maybe. Um,
- we've had Brink Lemur One, we have Brink Lemur Two.
- So the tack team had already incorporated the drone use
- into their own. But having
- me
- and the X10 having, not necessarily me as a, a
- whole, but it's more often than not me.
- But having me bringing my drone
- pilots to a call-out or
- having a drone pilot that's trained on the call-out and being able to
- delegate, it's like, "Okay,
- you're flying.
- Either you've... Here's your controller.
- Work it out with the remote, uh, with the Arctic, but you're flying this
- call. Here's the house. Do what you need to do," and knowing
- that they know what to
- do and then it allows me to do other things.
- Our tack team, I mean, uh, uh, I...
- Not, September the 2nd, just 23 days ago, we had
- a tack team call-out.
- A suspect shot at the landlord. He shot at the
- neighbors. Um, patrol response, we've got a
- barricaded suspect.
- It, uh, you know, we tried all the deescalation
- techniques that we can do. We call him out on the PA. We try
- and call the phone.
- We introduce gas. Um, we introduce the
- robot. We find out that he had crawled up in the attic.
- And while I'm doing a battery swap,
- um, I learned something. I've not never built a house, but
- the, the gable, so like the... H- there's hip roofs
- and there's gable roofs. So like the, the siding
- on the gable, the dude had kicked out from inside the
- attic.
- And of course, I'm on a battery swap.
- The tack team operators are just like, "What was that noise?" And the tack team
- commander's used to seeing my live stream, and he's yelling at me, "Get me a drone
- over there. We need to see." And so I get it up,
- and as soon as I get back
- into position, you know, he leans out and fires a shot out
- the front of the house at the BearCat and the Rook.
- And so then, you know,
- tactics are changing a little bit.
- But you know, I keep, keep an eye on, uh, the, the
- suspect. I'm live streaming back to the tack team
- commanders.
- And,
- uh, he ends up leaning out and firing another shot. He jumps down.
- As he comes around and he encounters the tack team members
- that
- have the house surrounded and, and they stopped the threat.
- Um, so they rely on the... They want
- this on every call if, if possible.
- So any other questions real quick?
- Ugh. The end?
- [laughs]
- Now people are raising their hand.
- [laughs]
- You mentioned that your fire department is, is completely on board with you guys
- and y'all are splitting it. Are y'all splitting the funding or how
- are you funding
- your program?
- Yes.
- Hold on one second. Can I just repeat that for the live stream?
- Yeah. I was going to. We got it.
- Um, the question was about splitting funding
- with fire and how you're doing that.
- Right. So yes, it's 50/50. Uh, they're paying for half,
- we're paying for half.
- Straight down the middle.
- Are you guys us- using alternative grants or is it strictly
- municipal funds?
- Municipal
- funds.
- Um, my question's around, uh, community engagement,
- feedback you got from
- them when you initiated the program, pushback and how if you guys do a
- transparency page or how do you get your information out to the public if they're
- looking for it?
- So,
- uh,
- Captain Busert just
- i- inc- incorporated it in the Axon contract.
- Um, we, we have nine city council. There's s-
- Seven.
- Y- most everything is a four to three vote.
- There's four that like us, three that don't like us.
- Um,
- and-
- And the mayor of the time appointed you.
- Yeah. Uh, you know,
- it didn't say drone, it didn't say sUAS, it just said something.
- No, it said UAS.
- Oh, it did?
- Yeah.
- Okay. But anyway, the fact-
- One line in a 20-page contract, UAS
- ... [laughs] The, the fact that they didn't see it, the...
- I mean, we, we presented it to them, they signed off on it, and we
- started rolling with it. Um, as far as the...
- We have a very active, um, some use a PIO, some
- use Office of Media Relations. Ours is now Office of Media Relations.
- Um, uh, like that TAC team call-out that I just described,
- they just released yesterday. Um,
- they push everything out on social media.
- They, um,
- you know, we, we use the transparency in that aspect.
- We do n- You know, I, I like the transparency page concept.
- I've had other agencies talk to me about it.
- I, I'm not interested in trying to do that myself.
- Um, if Skydio's dashboard does that automatically, I will
- absolutely roll with it, but it's not something
- that I want to maintain.
- Uh, I've got enough going on. Um-
- An- anybody in our city can request the video,
- and state law
- requires us to release it, so it, it, we're, we're not gonna hide anything from
- anybody on what we're doing-
- Yeah
- ... on that.
- But,
- you know,
- as he alluded to,
- w- we've been very fortunate for many, many years.
- Um, we've, we have the overall support, uh, of
- our community, of our community leaders, of our department
- leaders,
- and I think that, you know, from a overall
- drone program perspective, we've really, really tried to
- make sure we did the right thing because, you know,
- uh, I only know it from the law enforcement
- perspective, but you get something
- that's really cool out there, and you go live with it,
- and somebody does something to screw it up, and they take it away from
- everybody.
- And so-
- It just takes one bad incident.
- Yeah.
- So we've, we trained hard on you do it for business
- purposes only under these
- guidelines, and we, we've stuck to that pretty well.
- Okay.
- All right. Thank you so much for your presentation
- and all of the information
- that you had on your drone program.
- Thanks guys.
- Thank you.
- And I think it's lunchtime, so see you in the next breakouts.
- Thank you so much.
Watch Time
51 Mins 18 Secs
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