Upper Darby PD launches crime intelligence center and Drone as First Responder program
Upper Darby Police Department launched a crime intelligence center alongside a Drone as First Responder program, pairing the Skydio X10 and Dock with real-time video for officers on the way to a call. Within a few months of launch, the drones had already supported officers across a range of calls, tracking a robbery suspect who changed clothes to try to avoid detection, locating a reported stolen vehicle so officers in unmarked cars could move in undetected, and helping monitor a large street takeover over a holiday weekend. In each case, the real-time view lets officers assess a scene from a safe distance and choose how to approach, whether that means moving in quickly or closing in quietly without lights or sirens, turning a chaotic call into a controlled, safer response.
- Well now to an Action News exclusive here tonight of the new crime-fighting tool
- quietly at work right now in Delaware County.
- This summer, Upper Darby Police debuted a high-tech new
- drone program,
- eyes in the skies feeding back critical real time information to officers
- on the ground. And so far they say it's providing an
- invaluable and much
- safer approach not just to solving crime, but to preventing it.
- Action News reporter Becca Hendrickson has the story.
- You're watching a police drone following a reported stolen car in Upper Darby
- Township. You see the driver pull over in the 2016
- silver Nissan
- Maxima. Officers in unmarked cars pull up
- and arrest the suspect.
- They don't know that the police are coming because the drone's above them.
- This happened June 30th, and according to Upper Darby Police,
- is one of the first
- arrests made because of a new million dollar crime intel center
- and drone docking
- station launched this summer.
- Absolutely changed the game for us in how we police.
- Five days earlier on June 25th, police launched the drone to follow this
- 16-year-old suspect after a robbery on the 100 block of 69th Street.
- That individual leaves the store, is walking away
- changing clothes and trying to hide the items that he stole.
- You see police pull up on the teenager and arrest him.
- This is becoming a deescalation tool without us even realizing it.
- Why do I say that? It's 'cause now your cars
- are slowing down.
- They're not going lights and sirens. They're not getting there overly
- aggressive.
- The center works as a mix between police cameras and use of drones.
- When a 911 call comes in, officers can pull up the
- intersection in question and begin watching it.
- It has been such a great tool that we are now using.
- Upper Darby Police now have more than 20 cameras throughout the township at
- intersections like this one, State and Lansdowne.
- This is where over 4th of July holiday police say there was a street takeover,
- and they made 15 arrests. Officers said it all happened quickly
- because intel police were monitoring this intersection
- in real time as 911 calls came in.
- We knew where to strategically put cameras throughout the township.
- While it is surveillance technology, police say they plan on only using
- it to combat crime.
- We're not doing anything other than public safety.
- In Upper Darby, Becca Hendrickson, Channel 6 Action News.
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2 Mins 8 Secs