Inside LVMPD’s Multi-drone DFR Operations
Deploying multi-drone DFR at scale means using distributed drones, hives, autonomy, staffing, and disciplined procedures to maintain coverage, reduce response gaps, and support patrol without overloading operators. In this session, Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department’s Lead Pilot, Joseph Russie, discusses how LVMPD's drones arrive first, provide real-time situational awareness, relieve officers during pursuits and containment, clear lower-priority calls without patrol response, and sustain operations across a large, high-volume jurisdiction.
Hosted by Noreen Charlton, Public Safety Strategy at Skydio, the session will conclude with live audience Q&A.
- >> Hey, everyone, welcome. Thanks for hanging out with us today for a bit.
- Today, we are
- talking about what multi-drowned DFR actually looks like in the field. There's
- been a lot
- of interest in this topic because agencies are starting to move beyond single-d
- rowned
- DFR and think about seriously doing DFR at scale. There's still a lot of
- questions about
- what that actually means operationally. And when people hear multi-drown, they
- imagine
- one pilot manually flying multiple aircraft on multiple calls at the same time.
- But that's
- not really the model that we're talking about today. Today's reality is much
- more practical,
- using multiple drones to maintain coverage, to reduce your gaps, and then to
- support
- all of your operations without adding unnecessary workload. My name is Noreen
- Charlton and I
- lead public safety strategy here at Skydio. I actually spent more than a decade
- with the
- Las Vegas metropolitan police department. So I'm really excited about being
- joined today
- by Officer Rossi. A little bit of housekeeping before we jump in, please go
- ahead and drop
- any comments or questions that you have right in the strat. Obviously, this is
- on a webinar
- platform, but we are trying to be as interactive as possible. So we'd love to
- hear from you
- throughout the session, and we will answer any and all questions throughout the
- way or
- at the end. So, Joseph, can you start by giving everyone a quick intro, talk
- about your role,
- how long you've been with LVMPD and what your day-to-day looks like as a lead D
- FR pilot?
- Yeah, of course. First off, Noreen, thank you for having me here today. So my
- experience
- I've been on with Metro for about 10 years now, about six, seven years in
- patrol as boots
- on the ground handling calls for service. For the last three years, I've been
- in the TechOps
- Bureau. I started with drone enforcement, then we created our drone as first
- responder
- team. So we started that from a mobile approach. We did that for a year
- successfully, then
- we transitioned over to our remote operations. So that's what I do day-to-day.
- So currently
- we're operating 38 remote docks across the Las Vegas Valley handling calls for
- service.
- I'm a lead pilot for my team. I have three other civilian pilots with me. So we're
- hammering
- calls, non-stop, supporting patrol, anything that comes up where a drone can be
- needed,
- we'll send a drone out there. We don't do any random surveillance or anything
- like that.
- It's only for a Sistine calls for service. With how busy Las Vegas is, it's
- mostly just
- dynamic calls all day non-stop. Yeah, I think that's actually the perfect segue
- into the
- next slide. So to really understand LVMPD's DFR program, I want everyone just
- to understand
- the environment that they operate in. I think when most people hear Las Vegas,
- they kind
- of just think of the strip. Maybe, you know, some of the surrounding
- residential areas,
- but most people don't realize the vast land of coverage that you have at LVMPD.
- So can
- you talk a little bit about Vegas and specifically Metro's jurisdiction?
- Yeah, so Metro's kind of unique. So back in the '70s, we merged our city
- jurisdiction
- with our county jurisdiction. So we do both. So we kind of run the whole valley,
- in a sense.
- It's a very, very large valley. It's growing tremendously. We can't even really
- keep up
- with how much it's growing from a police department level. But over 2 million
- people are here.
- There is, I believe, maybe two to 3 million calls for service every year. We
- try to cover
- as much as the valleys we can with drones. I believe it's over 100 square miles
- now. Might
- be a little more. For our police department, I believe we're like the sixth
- largest agency
- in the country. I think our number is getting close to 4,000 commissioned
- officers with
- even more civilians now. So it's a very big city and it's a busy city. There's
- a very
- tight-knit community, but it is calls all over the valley.
- Yeah, and I think what's even more unique about it is obviously the number of
- visitors.
- I think we estimated over 40 million annual visitors here. I was with the
- agency in 2017
- and working the night of the one October, Route 91 Harvest Festival, mass
- shooting.
- We started using drones the day after for scene documentation. While it has
- obviously
- taken LVMVTE, LVMPD at some years to get to the program that they are today, I
- kind
- of like to remind people, it's just because the technology didn't exist the way
- that you
- needed it to operate at this type of scale. Can you help everyone understand
- kind of what
- makes the metro jurisdiction uniquely challenging specifically from a drone
- standpoint?
- So for it to be, yeah, uniquely challenging for us from four drones, it's just
- getting
- to those areas quick enough with the drone to assist on calls for service. My
- experience
- with flying drones for the last two years, you want to be first on scene with
- the remote
- docs that's helped us tremendously. My drones are first on scene, I would say
- almost 100%
- of the time. We are there giving critical information to patrol officers,
- setting the
- scene for them so they know what they're arriving into. It's just being there
- for our
- patrol to support everyone. Vegas is so unique and like you talked about for
- October 1,
- I was a trainee at that time. I was hired on back then. I was still in field
- training
- and it was one of the most chaotic nights of my career and seeing that we did a
- drone
- mapping mission and that was like the spark of LVMPD starting to use drones and
- then
- just doing building blocks from there. We had a lot of trial and error in the
- beginning
- with drones and figuring out who can use them, how we can effectively map out
- things and
- help calls for service and we kind of decentralized our drone unit and everyone
- got one and that
- led to a lot of crashes and a lot of airspace violations and then kind of
- brought the drones
- back in house and slowly refined it from there. And now as you can see what it
- is today with
- the 16 mobile drones and the 38 docs, it's been highly successful getting there
- . Like
- I said, first on scene, providing that information, getting people in custody,
- helping officers
- on foot pursuit so they're not injuring themselves, jumping walls, we can do
- more containment
- instead of going after and chasing someone to capture versus chasing someone to
- contain
- now. So it's definitely has been a huge game changer. It's a massive force
- multiplier
- on what we do as operationally. Yeah, that's super helpful. I think I also
- want to call out some more like information about call volume. These numbers
- are from
- the 2024 annual report that they give us a good baseline for the operating
- environment
- that you work in. You receive roughly two and a half million calls a year, more
- than 425,000
- of those calls are dispatched in 2024, about a 7.7 minute average response time
- . I think
- that seven plus minutes matters because DFR, obviously, as you mentioned,
- fundamentally
- is about time and information. So you're also operating across 12 almost 13
- area commands,
- which matters because DFR coverage has to map to real operational geography and
- not
- just kind of this city wide average, drop a drone and draw a circle. Can you
- just talk
- about the current DFR response in Vegas? Like how are you getting dispatched to
- these calls?
- What does that information and communication look like for you in your day to
- day operations?
- So for my setup, we have four monitors that I have multiple ways of looking at
- calls for
- services. So I have three different entities I have that the calls for service
- will pop
- up on. And I only do that because sometimes one system is a little faster than
- the other,
- but we're proactively monitoring calls. So when we see a call pop up, even
- before the
- dispatcher would broadcast it, I'm already launching my drone to the scene.
- Within our
- radius of coverage for the drones, the longest response time a drone is going
- to take to
- reach the edge of our operational limit is about three minutes. For the most
- part, if
- calls within that bubble were within 30 seconds we're on scene. I think my
- record for being
- on scene is within like 15 seconds of a shooting call because they did it right
- by the dock.
- It's just so important. And we'll probably talk about that later with that
- successful call,
- but it's just being proactive, being on top of it. There's different ways of
- being first on scene.
- That's kind of the biggest thing is how do you jump the gun? How do you get to
- the call first?
- What do I have to do? Do I need to monitor, you know, prepared 911 and listen
- to dispatchers on
- the phone? Do we have the capabilities? We looked at that and because we have
- so many calls for
- service, it's kind of a sensory overload listening to every 911 call. But as
- the call taker puts
- that initial details of the call in our queue, we can see it even before there
- 's a major update on
- what's going on. If we see the type of call that's coming out, we'll just send
- a drone immediately
- there. And it's been highly, highly successful being on scene within 15 seconds
- to three minutes
- to give officers real time updates on what's going on, seeing people fleeing
- from houses,
- you know, throwing case scenes, throwing guns. We've been getting more people
- in custody
- and making this city a whole lot safer with our whole drone program.
- Yeah, that's awesome. I think I want to touch a little bit on how the radio
- system is set up
- there. So we spoke about having all of these different airy commands. I think
- this is going
- to be important when we talk about multi drone and launching from different
- areas. But can you
- just talk a little bit about how each area command has its own specific radio
- channel plus other
- various channels and how you monitor and keep control of all of that? So with
- being such a large
- agency, yeah, we have the 12 area command channels. And then within those area
- command channels,
- there's a secondary channel and a third channel, if needed, if it gets
- overloaded with dynamic calls,
- plus we have our specialized unit channels that utilize us for certain things.
- So for the most
- part, we monitor value-wide calls for service queues. And then we usually sit
- on one channel
- and our dispatchers know what channel we're on. So if a dynamic call comes out
- that we're not
- tracking or if something is more static or an update happen that we didn't see,
- dispatch will
- reach out to us directly and ask us to switch over to that channel. For the
- most part, though,
- my team, we're on top of it. The only time they'll notify us really is if we're
- all four of us are
- working a call and we don't have time to monitor other calls. And that's kind
- of where multi drone
- comes in, where as I'm wrapping up one call, I hear another one coming out, I
- can send one back
- and send one immediately to the next call. So then by the time I finish one, I
- can just seamlessly
- transition to a new channel and start working that call saves time. DFR is all
- about saving time
- and getting there first. Yeah, that's awesome. I just think it's super
- important for people to
- understand, especially if you're joining us from a smaller agency where you
- kind of have,
- you know, dispatch center and one main radio channel for all of your traffic.
- Vegas is obviously
- very complex with the size of it and how many, you know, the area that they
- serve. So just something
- to keep in mind is we get through more of this and we're going to talk through
- a specific case
- study here soon. In September of 2025, LVMPD secured a major regulatory
- milestone, which was
- BV loss in zero grid and the multi drone approval. From the operator side, what
- did this approval
- make possible that was difficult or even impossible before that you had it?
- Well, if we don't have
- our BV loss in zero grid, it completely restricts us on what we can do
- operationally. And then
- if we didn't get that waiver, we would need a officer on scene first to observe
- our drone flying
- to the scene. So getting that BV loss waiver in the zero grid, huge, huge, huge
- success for us
- to go and not come down our operations. Can you just speak a little bit about
- all the airspace
- there? You have multiple airports, you have an LS, you have all can you just
- talk a little bit
- about your airspace that you. Yeah, so we have an Air Force base called Nellis
- Air Force base,
- which is a large presence. We have Harry Reid, which is one of the most popular
- airports. And then we
- even have private airports in our North Las Vegas that where it's where a lot
- of people do training
- and get their pilots license. So there's flights nonstop and all over. So with
- our certificate of
- authorization, we worked it out. We have our areas where I actually brag our co
- is the best in the
- country because it's how tight we can get to the airport. I can almost fly up
- to the fence line of
- the airport. It's just a rival and departure where we can't touch. And even if
- we needed to,
- we can call, you know, S G I's in and get in those air spaces. But having that
- baby loss and having
- the color the way we have it allows us for more coverage, faster response, less
- phone calls to the
- FAA, less phone calls to the tower to get us there on scene first. And that's
- honestly,
- the thing I'm going to hammer in today is you want to be on scene first to give
- all the updates.
- That's the whole purpose of having a drone in a dock ready to go is to get
- there immediately to
- give updates because things change dynamically on all these calls for service.
- Anybody who's been in law enforcement, you know, you get details two minutes
- later, it can be
- completely different. Yeah, and I think now we've kind of established what the
- jurisdiction looks
- like. So let's talk a little bit about coverage. You've mentioned some of these
- numbers already.
- But here we've highlighted kind of the actual footprint of the DFR program
- today in Las Vegas.
- You have 12 different dock locations. You have 38 dock drones. You have slash
- had 16 mobile DFR
- drones. And in total, you have about 130 square miles of your jurisdiction
- covered.
- So this is the point where kind of the operational questions start to change.
- When an agency obviously has one drone, the question is, can we get this drone
- to a call?
- But when you have multiple docks in different areas, the question is, well, how
- do we use the
- right drone from the right place at the right time without overwhelming the
- operator? And this is
- where multi-jone becomes extremely relevant. So before the docks were installed,
- LVMPD built a mobile DFR capability. So can you talk a little bit about why
- that mattered?
- And what did mobile DFR prove for the agency? And how did patrol respond once
- they started
- seeing drones arrive on their calls? So when I started mobile DFR, we did that
- canine model.
- So it was us paired with another pilot, a civilian pilot. And we were valley-
- wide
- responding to every call for service. So it was kind of difficult because you
- 're essentially
- the dock on wheels, right? And you need to understand your valley and kind of
- put yourself
- in a position where you're kind of guessing where the next dynamic call is
- going to come out at.
- So you would look at your crime maps and stay in those hotspot areas, which we
- were very successful.
- In my experience, if we weren't within five to 10 minutes of driving distance
- to a call,
- we weren't going to be successful. So you really had to position yourself in
- the right areas.
- And then you take an account for rush hour traffic and trying to maneuver
- around the valley.
- The way Las Vegas is split, it's kind of split east and west with the highway.
- So if you're
- picking a side, you're kind of stuck on that side for the night in mobile DFR.
- The difference
- having, you know, the docks now is you don't worry about traffic. But patrol,
- when we first
- started mobile DFR, they weren't really too sure on how it was going to work.
- They still
- requested the helicopter over us. It wasn't until we just proactively started
- jumping these calls,
- getting first on scene, providing those information and really relieving the
- officers during those
- foot pursuits. They started loving us a lot more. And now we're requested on
- every single call all
- the time. They almost demand us to be there because we're such a good eye in
- the sky and we relieve
- them with so much responsibility. We become the radio traffic. We become their
- perimeter. We become
- everything for them so they can focus just on their officer safety and their
- tactics. And when I
- was in patrol, that's one thing that I loved about, you know, the helicopter
- coming to my calls is
- they relieved me of all that. And now having a drone, you know, you have
- multiple little mini
- helicopters doing that same stuff for patrol on multiple different calls. So it
- is still a huge,
- huge game changer and it's nothing but love from patrol now. They can't live
- without us.
- Yeah, that's awesome. I think we didn't even set that up in the beginning that
- you guys have an
- air unit and a very robust air unit that's out almost, you know, 24/7
- responding to calls for
- service. It's kind of a muscle memory thing that you just request air. You don
- 't think about drones.
- But this slide in particular is speaking to the metrics thus far in 2026. You
- 've completed more
- than 9,700 DFR flights and you're averaging more than 2,000 a month at this
- point,
- supported more than 6,000 calls for service and assisted in 442 arrests. I
- think these
- stacks were pulled from a week or two ago. The important thing here is to note
- that DFR is just
- not an occasional use tool, right? It's becoming a part of the operations for
- all of your patrol.
- And that level of flight volume creates a very different set of questions on
- staffing
- and your prioritization and your workload and how you keep drones available for
- the next call
- that comes in. So when you look at these numbers, what do they say to you about
- how DFR has changed
- day-to-day operations, not only for your team in DFR, but also for patrol? And
- you kind of
- touched on this a little bit in the last slide, but talk a little bit more
- about just how you're
- seeing these changes and the growth as you continue to move into the DFR space.
- Yeah, with the way Lost Vegas is and how inundated with calls we are, this
- number would easily be
- doubled if we had double the staffing. There's so many calls that we just can't
- get to, so we're
- prioritizing the most dynamic ones first. But yeah, as like I said before, it's
- a complete game changer
- on us getting the calls and being first on scene and assisting patrol. There's
- times where patrol
- would have to go, you know, far onto the desert or on top of rooftops to check
- for people. Now you
- get the drone to do it. For article searches, for locating subjects, it's just
- so much easier and
- faster for the drone unit to do it. Missing kids is almost the thing of the
- past now when parent
- calls in, we're getting the drone over there, we're finding the kid almost
- immediately. It's just
- such a, I'm going to keep saying this, it's a game changer, a force multiplier.
- It's so important
- now for our city to have drones and to expand our drone unit. As big as we are,
- you know, we want
- to triple it. We want, you know, I want to have 150 pilots and I want, you know
- , 100 docs because
- we're just so successful and it's so helpful. And the public perception has
- been very positive
- because we're very transparent as an agency. So we post all of our flights
- publicly to our LVMPD
- page. We have very strict policies that we follow. We make sure that everyone
- is not randomly
- surveilling, we're not checking backyards, unless it's for a purpose, for a
- crime, for a call for service.
- Yeah, that's great. And I think you've mentioned some of these numbers. First
- on scene, you've only
- mentioned 1,000 times already. Let's talk about it. I think this is, this slide's
- just showing
- more of the operational impact, right? You were reporting 70% first on scene. I
- put a little
- asterisk here because I want to start there. There's a little bit of nuance
- behind that number.
- Can you explain how LVMPD defines first on scene and what that metric does or
- does not capture here
- in 70%? Yeah, so when we do our like post flight reporting, we check a box if
- we were first on
- scene. That means beating patrol to the scene. The issue is we're also
- requested on, you know,
- missing person calls. We're requesting on all different types of calls. Well,
- we're not first
- on scene. We're doing article searches. We're helping out in various ways. So
- it's kind of
- inaccurate on how we're first on scene. We need to change our reporting system
- to be, you know,
- if the call was generated and you got assigned to it at the same time as patrol,
- who's first on scene, it would be us 100% of the time. Yeah, I think that's
- just important for
- everyone to know here because you mentioned like your, you know, first on scene
- is obviously the
- utmost importance. This is how it's reported out, but that's the perfect
- explanation, right?
- There are other calls for service that you go to that aren't like the priority
- zero call that
- you're getting there before everyone else, but they're in assistance of the
- officers that need
- some additional coverage. So we've also called out kind of here that you have
- more than 490 calls
- cleared without patrol response, 1900 persons located in more than 535 vehicles.
- Obviously,
- first on scene is one of the most important TFR metrics. But this really speaks
- to the value
- of getting that aerial awareness for officers just in general. The cleared
- without patrol number
- is also important because it shows that your DFR is not just accelerating
- response. It can also
- help agencies avoid unnecessary response when the drone can fly over and the
- pilot can verify that
- the call doesn't actually require a patrol to continue. So when DFR clears a
- call about patrol
- kind of calls, are you guys typically saying that those are for? So it's mostly
- like those lower
- priority trespassing calls, people causing disturbances. It's a lot of unhoused
- people that
- are in areas where people call in like businesses would call in at shopping
- centers. So we'll also
- look at calls that have been holding for a while if we have downtime, which is
- very rare.
- But we'll send the drone over there and we'll check to see like a 7-11 if that
- person is still
- outside, you know, causing a disturbance yelling at people. We'll let the
- patrol supervisor know,
- hey, that person's gone, looked around the area. We don't see anyone. We'll
- have dispatch
- recall the person reporting and be like, hey, our drone just checked. It's
- neither not there.
- You want to cancel the call and they'll cancel it or the patrol supervisor will
- just cancel it.
- Just two weeks ago, we had a very dynamic call. It was a shooting that turned
- into a barricade
- in our downtown area, which our downtown area command encompasses like all the
- free
- monestreet experience part of the strat and a large area. And they had, I
- believe it was over
- like 40 calls for service pending where they just didn't have the resources and
- they're pulling
- officers from other area commands to help out. And our watch commander sits
- with us
- at our stations and I hear him asking for more resources. So I had my team, you
- know, hey, still
- handle the valley on calls for service. I'm going to jump over and start
- clearing out these calls
- for downtown. So I checked on all those longer holding calls. Some of them were
- property pickup,
- some of them were trespassing ones. Everyone was gone. And we just cleared them
- out to help
- clear out calls, call back the person reporting and let them know like, hey, we
- 're a little busy.
- I see you're not in the area anymore. Do you still want our assistance? They
- usually say no.
- We'll call back later. And that's just how we free up more patrol units. So as
- such a large
- agency, we're able to do that. If there's smaller agencies out there, you know,
- you'll be first
- on scene for everything. And even those disturbance calls, when you're first on
- scene,
- they may turn into nothing. They may just walk away and you clear it out or
- they pick up a rock
- or a stick and they start changing a misdemeanor to a felony, you know, and we
- 've seen that many times.
- So I think this is kind of one of the most unexpected parts of DFR was being
- able to do this. And I
- think all of the examples you provided are super helpful to anyone who has
- joined us to understand
- how they could be clearing calls for service with the pilot and the drone.
- So we pulled this from a presentation that you guys had recently. This daily
- flight volume chart
- explains why LVMPDs model cannot be built around occasional use. You can very
- clearly see days
- with a very high flight volume, often in the kind of 70 to 100 flight range and
- sometimes
- even higher. But this also explains why multi drone matters. When flight volume
- is this high,
- you know, your drone availability, the battery cycles, the prioritization of
- your calls for
- service, your operators workload, these all become really operational issues.
- So what does a high
- volume day feel like from your seat as a DFR pilot? It's the same as when I was
- in patrol. It's just
- called a call to call nonstop. The only difference is, you know, I'm not in 120
- degrees in a full
- uniform, but it is taxing on the pilots. And I see some of our guys that are
- civilian pilots,
- getting a little stressed out and worn down because we're short staffed. You
- know,
- I say we're short staffed, but we have a large staff. It's just we have so much
- calls and we can
- do so many flights. We need to have more bodies. But those busy days, it's non
- stop back to back
- calls. And sometimes you got to catch up on your post flight reports at the end
- of the day.
- Yeah, and then this this graph is for hourly flight distribution. And it's
- showing when
- demand is occurring throughout the day. And so you can see that flight activity
- kind of ramps up
- significantly in the morning. And then pretty much remains high through your
- swim shift hours.
- I think this pattern matters because it really helps inform staffing for a
- program like this.
- And this is also why the staffing conversation should not be separate from DFR
- or from a multi-drone
- conversation. From your perspective, how does the hourly demand affect how you
- guys staff the DFR
- unit and then prioritize that coverage? Well, so these stats actually show when
- we're logged on.
- So we log on at seven in the morning, and then our swim shift logs off around
- 11.
- So you can see the second we logged on, we're hit with calls. And it carries
- throughout the
- entire day. It's a lot to go off of. For the midnight to six in the morning,
- there is calls
- holding. And we can't get to them because nobody's there. We're on call, but it
- 's not for patrol
- calls for service. It's for like mapping missions or assisting on barricades.
- So if we did have our
- 24/7 coverage, those bars would just be as high as the other ones. We're a 24-
- hour city. We're
- nonstop. Everything's open late. You've been with us back in 2017. You know how
- Las Vegas is.
- It's a 24-hour city. Everyone comes here to have a good time. And it is nonstop
- . So we are transitioning
- to a 24-hour coverage model here in the next couple months. We're hiring eight
- more people,
- and that will kind of help us stagger our hours. So the next time you see this
- graph,
- though, it's going to be just straight across the board, nonstop flights.
- Yeah, that's helpful for people to understand. Also interesting, and I think
- there are some
- questions in the chat about this. You guys use a mixed staffing model, which is
- super unique to
- your agency. A few others are doing the same, but I wanted to highlight this
- because it's one of
- the topics that I hear most about from agencies across this country. You have
- commissioned super
- visors and sergeants. You have commissioned police officers, and then you have
- civilian
- remote pilots. One thing that obviously stands out is the civilian remote pilot
- role. Can you just
- talk briefly about who those pilots are and how they're hired or selected for
- the unit?
- So we started off opening civilian applications to everyone, and we were
- looking at the best
- candidates, which we found were retired military air force guys that were
- flying the MQ-9s and
- the predator drones. Those hires were phenomenal. They were great. We have
- other hires that came
- in that didn't really have the police experience, didn't really know, but they
- were great drone
- operators. That's a bigger hurdle for us training-wise because we're training
- them on police operations,
- patrol tactics, helping coordinate parameters and calling pursuits. So
- operating that more
- dynamic area, it was a little bit of a struggle, but we have a 19-week training
- program. We put our
- pilots through, so we don't just send them out to the wolves. They're with us.
- We do our daily
- observation reports. They're with me as my little trainee for 19 weeks until we
- get them up to speed,
- but it's definitely an interesting model on how we're doing it. We do at least
- one commissioned
- officer on shift for every civilian, so it's usually one police officer and
- then three civilians,
- and the lead officer is going to be the ones that are filtering the calls,
- looking what's
- dynamic, teaching and educating the civilian pilots. "Hey, this is a priority
- call because it
- says this, this, and this." Just based off, because we go off 400 codes, just
- based off the 400 code,
- doesn't necessarily mean that call is more important than this other one. So
- teaching them
- that was a big hurdle. It would have been a thousand times easier to do all
- commissioned officers,
- and if you have the ability to do that, it's just a seamless transition, but it
- 's difficult to pull
- patrol officers from the streets to do it, and also some of our civilian pilots
- , like the retired
- Air Force guys, I learned more about the airspace and drone flying from them
- than I've learned
- anywhere else. So having the right hires and the right civilians that you pick
- just expand your unit,
- and it's all positive. So those two sets of points, you just got to be kind of
- choosy on who you're
- hiring. Yeah, absolutely, and I think that rolls clearly into what we're seeing
- is the core challenge
- for agencies across the country. The number one barrier to starting or even
- just scaling your DFR
- program is finding the right people to staff it, and once agencies understand
- the value of DFR,
- the next question immediately becomes, "Okay, how do we support more coverage
- without needing one
- dedicated operator for every single drone and every single dock?" So that's the
- problem that
- multi-drone operations is trying to solve, but it has to be solved in a way
- that's safe and realistic
- for operators. The technology obviously can help with this, but only if your
- operating model
- is realistic for the people that are actually doing the work. And so when we
- work with an agency to
- understand the deployment, we take a data-driven approach with historical call-
- for-service data
- for basically all of the reasons Joseph just covered. So the locations of your
- drones and docks
- should be directly related to your call volume. At the end of the day, one
- drone can only respond
- to one call for service at a time, no matter how fast it flies or for how long
- it can stay in the
- air. So in this particular simulation, we looked at about 500,000 calls for
- service across Clark
- Carney, and we just asked a simple question. If DFR coverage expands, how much
- of that call volume
- could drones theoretically reach and how quickly? And so the key point is that
- coverage will improve
- as you add more docks, but then that creates a second issue. How do you staff
- all of those docks
- in that coverage? So just to kind of briefly show what that looks like, with 15
- docks,
- the simulation shows a very limited reach. It's like 1.29% of calls reached
- under 120 seconds,
- and that's 18% of the total of the 500,000 calls for service. This is obviously
- valuable,
- but it shows a huge constraint, right? A small number of docks can support
- important areas,
- but it does not create this broad coverage across a large jurisdiction like Las
- Vegas,
- but as the number of docks grow, the coverage changes quickly. So here's that
- 44 docks,
- 11.2% under 120, and almost 40% in total, 168 docks, we're getting to 64% in
- under 120 seconds.
- But now let's talk about the staffing commitment. At 15 docks, one-to-one
- staffing is a huge
- commitment, right? That's 15 docks with 15 operators. At 44 docks, a one-to-one
- staffing model is
- basically impossible, and at 168 docks, it just totally breaks. No agency is
- going to staff DFR
- by simply adding one operator for every single dock forever until they fully
- grow their program.
- So that becomes the question of why multi-drone. The goal here is to create a
- model where a smaller
- number of trained operators can manage distributed drones when those assets are
- solving a real
- operational problem. So that's what you're seeing here. So when we say multi-dr
- one,
- we don't mean one pilot manually flying several aircraft on multiple different
- unrelated calls
- for service. We mean a trained operator using more than one aircraft when it
- solves a specific
- problem. So that could be continuity of a call, right, on station relief. That
- could be coverage,
- that could be containment, or just transitioning from long call to the next.
- And a lot of this is about automation, right? It's about remote operations and
- having really
- disciplined procedures to keep your drones available, maintain visibility, and
- really reduce the gaps
- that you have in your coverage. So, Joseph, when agencies hear multi-drone, I
- think we've talked
- about this quite a bit. What do you think they misunderstand about what it
- actually looks like
- in the field? Well, I think the big misunderstanding is, yeah, like you said,
- you can't fly multiple
- drones to multiple calls. You can't have your eyes on four different screens of
- drone flying and
- give four different updates, especially like for us, when I have somebody
- running on this call,
- or I'm setting up containment, I have to watch this house. So if someone runs
- out the back,
- you can't break that focus. The best use for multi-drone is like continuing a
- call as on-scene
- relief. So I'll have one drone on a call. It's getting low on battery. I'll
- send a second one,
- get it on-scene, get it set up, and then send the other one back. That's kind
- of the
- majority of what we're doing. There's another aspect to it when you're
- controlling multiple
- drones over multiple different areas where we have different radio channels is
- when I'm going
- to a call, and let's say it's, you know, a higher priority call, but it's not
- the most dynamic call,
- and then something pops off that's extremely dynamic. I don't have to wait to
- send that drone
- back and land it and send a second one. I'm immediately sending that new drone
- to that more
- priority call, and I'm letting my dispatcher know, "Hey, I have to send this
- one back. I have a better
- call. I have to go to." So that's where multi-drone saves us to get us first on
- scene even quicker.
- And with the autonomy flight too is I monitor the drone coming back, and it
- lands in the dock on
- its own. It flies back on its own. It uses Pathfinder to avoid buildings and
- everything that we don't
- want to crash into. So it is a huge stress reliever for us, and it lets us get
- to those priority calls
- faster. Yeah, and I think that's a perfect segue into our next section here. We've
- obviously talked
- about your jurisdiction. We've talked about why multi-drone matters from a
- staffing perspective
- and from scale. So when I will talk about how you are actually operationalizing
- it,
- and I really want to kind of move from this concept of multi-drone into what
- your team is
- actually doing in response to call for service. So first, we'll talk about dock
- hives. This is
- one way to create operational depth in your high volume areas is something we
- believe very strongly
- in. The idea is that incident volume is not evenly distributed, right? You
- obviously have hot spots,
- but your incident volume could be over a large area like the jurisdiction that
- Metro serves.
- Some areas just generate more calls. There are higher priority incidents, and
- they just need more
- continuous aerial availability. A hive gives you more than one drone in the
- places where that
- demand exists, and that means one drone can be on a call for service, and
- another one can be ready
- and charged available to relieve, and another could potentially be dispatched
- to another nearby
- priority call. And this is where multi-drone becomes extremely practical. It's
- not just having more
- drones, but it's having more available options for the DFR pilot, the operator.
- Vegas obviously
- has several hives, we mentioned at the beginning 12 dock locations, but 38
- docks. How do the hives
- change what you can do compared to having only one available kind of drone in
- one location?
- For me, the hives are mandatory. You can't really have a DFR operation without
- them. For all of our
- sites, we're paired in three at all of our sites, except for our headquarter
- location, we have five.
- I would honestly recommend if you're a high volume city to have five drones per
- hive,
- because it's just so amazing to go to a call, do that on scene relief, but also
- when that call is
- finished and those drones are charging, like if you used one or two and another
- call pops off in
- that area, you have that third drone ready to go. You're not limited on waiting
- for drones to charge,
- so that's where it's a huge game changer. We've had calls for service, like for
- our
- headquarters that it's very busy in this area, and we've used all five drones
- on one call before,
- or we'll use one drone for a full call, land it, and immediately another one,
- or we have three
- pilots flying three drones out of that hive at once for three different calls.
- It's non-stop. You
- can never have enough drones, but for the hives, the minimum of having three is
- good. I would recommend
- five per just on my experience, and as many as you can fit on a rooftop. Yeah,
- you heard it here
- first. You can never have enough drones. We need more drones. We need more.
- So let's talk a little bit about on station relief. This is absolutely the most
- common and
- most straightforward multi-drone use case. So what you're seeing kind of in
- this image is like,
- we'll say DFR-1, that's our first drone. It's on a call, the battery's getting
- low, but rather
- than lose eyes on the scene, you are going to send DFR-2 to that exact sim call,
- so now one pilot has
- two drones in the air. Like Joe mentioned, because of the autonomy, it is going
- to go to that point
- that you need it to go to on its own. Once DFR-2 has eyes on scene, then your
- low battery DFR-1
- can return home. So one pilot has two up in the air at one time. This might
- sound simple, but like
- operationally, this is a huge deal. If the scene is still active, a battery
- swap is going to create
- a huge visibility gap on the suspect can move, the vehicle can leave, you know,
- officers are
- going to lose the information that they need. So on station relief is about
- continuity of the call.
- You mentioned that this is the majority of your multi-drone usage. You can just
- walk us through
- how this looks from your seats and how do you decide whether a call is
- important enough to send
- relief from another drone? Yeah, so when we're going to a call and let's say
- that it's turning into
- a barricade or somebody just ran and we know that they're under this certain
- area, but we can't get
- to it for whatever reason because there's heavy tree coverage or there's a
- patio cover and we're
- not going to drop the drone, you know, right on top of them. We're going to
- cover that area
- and keep eyes on it. So anybody that moves from that bubble, we're going to see
- it and it's highly
- important. We can't lose the eye on it, especially if it's going to be like a
- barricaded subject,
- if they're going to run out the back. For officer safety, we're going to push
- our officers a
- little bit away from rear containment and have the drone with eyes on so they
- can count on the drone.
- So when our battery is getting low, operationally, you need to do your own
- battery management.
- Skydio does a great job of giving you a wheel of your battery with green,
- yellow and red. So you
- kind of know like, hey, the drone's this far out. Once it hits yellow, it's
- going to send it home.
- So I need to send my new one out, you know, now, you know, don't wait for the
- drone to come back.
- So once we do send that second one, we'll pick a spot so they don't, you know,
- overlap each other
- or go near each other. Once we move into a position, we get that second drone
- eyes on the same way we
- did for the first drone, then we'll send the first drone back. Now, the nice
- thing is,
- with that autonomous return, is now I can focus on that second drone on my
- containment and don't
- have to worry about navigating around buildings or making sure the drone's
- going to land home.
- You keep a loose eye on it and it's on the same screen. So you keep a loose eye
- on it, make sure
- it gets home and boom, you're keep going. And sometimes for our coverage, we
- have overlapping
- docks where sometimes we have access to nine drones at once. And just from like
- an operational
- standpoint, I'll send one drone from one hive and to save the other two drones
- from that hive,
- I'll send a second drone from a completely different hive, just in case other
- calls
- for service come out so I don't burn all three at one location. So it's very,
- very useful. It's
- very important. It's something we hammer home a lot in our training because it
- 's what you're going
- to be doing. It's what patrol and supervisors rely on for you to maintain that
- eye. It's very
- important for us. Yeah, and before we play this video, I kind of just want to
- set this up really
- quick. So this is a real screen recording from your DFR command map and it's
- showing on station
- relief in action. Everyone's going to see kind of one drone already on a call
- and then the second
- one moving in quick note, I absolutely sped this up in the interest of time so
- that you can see
- kind of the full relief process in a short amount of time. But in real
- operations, you know, you're
- managing this with actual flight time and battery status and radio traffic and
- all the other things
- in mind. What I personally love about this example is how ordinary it is for
- the LVMPD team. When we
- had kind of a dry run of this session last week, I just asked, you know, if you
- have an example of
- this and you were able to send this over to me from a call for service that
- happened within like,
- I don't know, 30, 45 minutes of us having that chat. So this is something that
- you do all the time.
- It's very much routine part of your DFR operations and a huge piece of why
- multi drone. So we're
- going to go ahead and play that now. And then Joe, can you kind of just walk us
- through what we're
- seeing here in this video? Yeah, so you can see the drone that's flying towards
- our target location.
- The static drone is going to position themselves just a little bit out of the
- way but still keep
- the eye. And then our new drone will take over their spot, get the new eye. And
- then once everything
- is set up, the pilot will send a return to home protocol on that drone and send
- it back. And
- this one is actually two different hives like I mentioned earlier. So we're not
- going to burn
- all the drones at one hive and then boom, back on scene, continuing operation,
- no problem.
- Yeah, that's that's super helpful for everybody to see that in action on how
- that works.
- Deploying to a second call for service is also another practical multi drone
- use case,
- but you've already touched on it. Like the operator really needs to have
- visibility on one scene in
- case things change dynamically. They need to get that information back to the
- ground. There's no
- point in having a drone overhead. If you can't let your officers on the ground
- know what you're
- seeing and prepare them with the information that you have. But this is more
- about like kind of
- transitioning to a second call for service. So this is this one we see DFR one
- is currently on a call,
- but it could be wrapping up and ready to return home. But a second call comes
- in and requires DFR.
- So DFR two can begin moving toward the new incident so that you're not losing
- time waiting
- for the first drone to kind of fully reset. And in some cases, both drones may
- absolutely be
- airborne during that transition with the operator managing a handoff rather
- than actively working
- two unrelated calls in a high volume environment like LBM PD. Obviously, this
- very much matters.
- Multi drone helps the unit maintain this kind of tempo across calls. So what
- has to be true for
- you from your perspective before you are comfortable sending let's say DFR two
- to a new call while
- DFR one is still returning or wrapping up on its original call. Well, just
- trust in your technology
- and your equipment and your software that Pathfinder, you can see the that pink
- line for DFR one,
- it's automatically changing its path around the building. That's something we
- rely on a ton
- with all the buildings we have around here, especially downtown. I've trusted
- the drone to go
- around like the circa and it does it flawlessly for this kind of situation for
- departments so they
- know if I'm wrapping up a call with DFR one and a second one comes out and that
- call is completely
- done. What I'll do sometimes is I will send that DFR one drone to that second
- call with its little
- bit of battery life left as I'm sending the second one there so I can maybe get
- an eye a little faster
- call it out and then swap them out there. So the multi drone it just helps us
- you know get resources
- there quicker keep eyes on longer and you have to use it tactfully and correct
- or else it's not
- going to be successful. So when you're picking and choosing your operators for
- your drone program,
- I recommend strong patrol backgrounds cops that have been boots on the ground
- that know what they
- want to see because they've done patrol long enough to know exactly where they
- need to go and how to
- filter out the calls and then you just apply the drone knowledge to them and
- you'll have a very
- successful program. Yeah, it's a great call out. The other thing that we spoke
- about was setting
- parameters and this is where multi drone can be especially useful around really
- complex scenes that
- cover a large area. So single drone obviously gives you one perspective but for
- these larger
- outdoor spaces or perimeter containment or moving incidents let's say maybe
- vehicle pursuit multiple
- drones can hold different angles or kind of likely exit points while patrol
- units move into position.
- And so what we're thinking about now when we look at this image we've kind of
- set up the
- concept of like a vehicle pursuit right we have one drone following the vehicle
- and we've set
- two others up on intersections of a potential route this vehicle may go. You
- talked about kind of
- using drones in this sense as kind of like an aerial PTZ camera. Can you talk a
- little bit more
- about this use case? Yeah, so if we get a vehicle pursuit let's just say they
- 're going westbound
- up the street we'll send the first drone to the direction where they're going
- and try to cut them
- off so we can get a whole long eye down that street. The next two drones that I
- want to send
- are going to be if that car takes a left or a right hand turn we can still stay
- with it. A lot
- of the times officers are losing eyes on the vehicle for pursuits sometimes the
- danger outweighs
- the pursuit and they're going to discontinue but we still want to stay with
- that car. The biggest
- win for us is when that car does take those quick turns and they go off these
- side streets
- and the drone is right there. You know they might lose patrol because they took
- six or seven turns
- immediately and they're tucked away in this neighborhood and then they bail but
- the drone's
- on top of it. We didn't lose them we have a good eye in the sky and when they
- start running through
- alleys or hopping walls and backyards now we're setting up containment and then
- we can transition
- those three drones and push them over and have that containment set up. For the
- most part when
- we're doing this if we do get a vehicle that does zigzag through neighborhoods
- and bail
- I'll start pulling other pilots and be like hey I'm going to control this one
- you control this one
- for me. There is the capabilities for me to control all three at once but it
- does gum down
- your operations a little bit because you're taking your eyes away from your
- target
- but setting it up you can do if you're quick enough a few clicks send your
- drones
- autonomously to your points position them where you want to position them and
- you're operating
- all of them on your own. Yeah and I think the biggest piece about multi-drone
- this is obviously
- going to change operations here as we keep building out our AI and our autonomy
- is that this is only
- going to get easier right the more that the drone can do on its own these are
- it's going to be for
- your operators but I think this is an excellent use case for getting multiple
- drones up but on
- one individual call for service but this is obviously like a dynamic one where
- you know it's
- a vehicle pursuit. We're actually going to jump into moving kind of again from
- concept into a
- real incident so a recovered stolen vehicle. I think this is important because
- it lets us see
- multi-drone not just as like this planning diagram but more as this operational
- decision-making process
- and this particular example is helpful because it shows kind of the same
- operational principles
- even though in this case it did involve more than one available pilot can you
- talk about briefly
- we're going to play this and I'm going to have you walk through it and kind of
- narrate it but
- you can just set up real quickly how this started and how the coverage evolved.
- Yeah so as you know
- LVMPD we try to be the most technologically advanced agency in the country so
- we have a
- lot of different things out there one of the things is license plate readers so
- this stolen car passed
- through one of our license plate readers our fusion center our real-time crime
- center called
- it out but also our drone pilots we get notifications for stolen vehicle hits
- so our pilots immediately
- launch and they get on top of it and start giving radio traffic on when they
- locate the vehicle
- and then its direction to travel. Great we'll go ahead and play it and I'll
- just kind of have you
- narrate what's happening here as a place there. Yep so one of our pilots is
- assigned to it they're
- going to go and do their best guess on where the vehicle is so they locate it
- we're given updates
- on how many times it's occupied what direction they're going you can see that
- we already cut it to
- where patrol was already on top of them so a lot of the times they'll either
- give up run or they're
- going to punch you and go so then it's game on so for our officers I don't
- believe they pursued
- this vehicle because it was too dangerous of a pursuit so we used drones so
- that first pilot
- ended up launching a second drone but there was another pilot available so they
- took over for them
- so we had two pilots flying two drones they locate one of the subjects bailing
- out of the car in our
- downtown area so they're just giving radio traffic they're setting up
- containment they're giving
- officers real-time updates you can see the two drones were next to each other
- at one point so
- now we have one guy running and one car that's driving through the parking lot
- so having those
- two drones up was helpful because one's sticking with the passenger and then
- one's sticking with
- the driver they eventually link up and they think they're scott-free they think
- they're just you
- know pedestrians walking down the street little do they know that we're setting
- up an entire team
- of officers to go out and get them and then we have our plane clothes guys come
- up and snatch
- them up and keep in the city safe and one more stolen car recovered back to the
- owner thanks
- to a multi-drone and I love I always love a view of the drone on drone I always
- think about it
- yeah it's a good shot yeah absolutely it doesn't may not be obvious to everyone
- who doesn't know
- the LVM PD jurisdiction but these drones came from two different area commands
- one was from
- Bolden and one was from downtown and so I took those flight paths and we overl
- aid it onto a map so
- you can see what that looks like so you see the two dock locations you can see
- some overlap in the
- flight paths as well so obviously some deconfliction happening there
- momentarily but I just thought
- it was interesting to see you know when you have drones set up in different
- locations and you have
- hives of different drones how you can send them from different locations they
- don't have to be
- right next to each other and this the pilot obviously is in some different area
- and not either of
- these locations so super beneficial for your DFR operations before we jump into
- the Q&A we have
- about nine minutes left to get into some of that I just kind of wanted to call
- out that DFR is
- obviously no longer experimental the broader industry context is really
- important we currently
- have more than 1,300 public safety agencies flying skydio drones and our latest
- assessment was 21
- million Americans now live within two miles of a skydio GFR dock and another D
- FR drone is taking
- off every 30 seconds so what LVM PD is really showing is that multi-drone is
- not just a waiver
- or you know a hardware or software capability it's an operating model it takes
- staffing it takes
- specific procedures the autonomy understanding your radio discipline deconf
- liction between drones
- and kind of a clear understanding of when that second drone actually solves a
- mission problem
- and when you should be sending it before we jump into the Q&A any advice that
- you have for anyone
- attending today that already has a DFR program and is starting to think about
- getting into multi-drone
- operations just look at your operational picture and see how it can be
- successful the way we use
- multi-drone is we shave time down to get first on scene and to get eyes up and
- to keep that
- continual eye if that's your operational picture and that's what you want to do
- start looking at
- how you're going to put those procedures in place and get your guys trained up
- training is huge
- never stop training so that's really the the best piece of advice is just
- keeping it really and
- improve absolutely and I think like the other key here is that there are people
- like you and
- agencies like LVMPD that you know are figuring this out and are doing this
- operationally and they
- more than welcome you to visit their operations and check out what they're
- doing and work together
- you know this is a tight-knit community where networking is so important and
- learning from one
- another is really important as well so you know Vegas is there we have other
- agencies who are
- doing multi-drone please just let me know if you ever want to be connected with
- anyone as well
- we do have a few minutes if you don't mind we'll jump into some of the
- questions here
- I'll handle this first one what did the FAA require for the BV loss waiver we
- have tons of
- resources on our website my team can drop you some links there in the chat that
- will help you
- understand how to apply for these waivers if you need any assistance we have a
- phenomenal
- regulatory team that can help you out as well so more to come there but we can
- absolutely get
- get you what you need there okay so have you used your mobile drones within the
- DFR operations
- like have you launched the mobile and then have your HQ pilots operate if so
- how is your experience
- functioning with the transition so it's a seamless transition so right now we
- don't put
- cars in the streets anymore we're solely remote operations the only time I go
- mobile is for when
- there's going to be a longer dynamic call where I can just take over that and
- keep the docks free
- or if it's out of our coverage zone for what you're talking about I actually
- did have a call
- where you might have seen it on the news if you're tracking Las Vegas it was at
- atomic golf somebody
- shot somebody inside it was a security guard and I had two remote drones on top
- of it I actually
- landed uh I didn't land I floated the drone probably 60 feet off the ground
- into the driving range to
- get a view on the second floor and I went mobile so we used remote drones with
- the mobile drone
- and our helicopter all of us working together to get a better picture and a
- clearer picture because
- you know it's weird how those uh those atomic golfs and top golf places are are
- open and there's
- many doors and rooms and it's hard for officers to get through so just giving
- that site picture with
- remote and mobile it was easy and it's just deconfliction it's just working
- with each other long
- enough to know hey you know I'm going to separate myself you know 30 feet from
- you I'll be 30 feet
- here and we all know the spots so and having skydio you know all skydio drones
- talk to each
- other so if you get close to a skydio drone it's going to tell you hey you're
- too close to this one
- so all the trust in your technology and then deconfliction and communication is
- key that's how
- we're successful yeah that's perfect um do you have fire and or EMS integrated
- into DFR?
- so uh we do have uh county fire has tethered drones that they use but for the
- most part we're doing
- the drone calls for fires right now so if there's a fire we'll launch one of
- our drones and we'll
- throw on one of the thermal pallets and we actually have a distribution list we
- didn't really touch
- on it too much um to send a link to our live feed to all of the firefighter
- chain of command
- so that's kind of what we do and they look at the different thermal pallets and
- they know what
- they're looking at because they're firefighters um about structural integrity
- and whatnot and all
- the different colors I just fly the drone and let them see it so they handle
- business so yes the
- fire department has tethered drones that do get in the way sometimes and we'll
- tell them hey we
- don't need your help because we're kind of a bigger operation and then we'll
- just launch our
- drones and help them out yeah I think like in general for the agencies who the
- PD is flying
- for fire like that's the general consensus like I know how to get you the
- images but like I don't
- know what I'm looking at and thermal so that's on you but the easy link sharing
- through uh ready
- link is is kind of what everyone's doing so they can get a quick view on it um
- if the PD does not
- or the I'm sorry if the FD does not have pilots of their own um are all of the
- LVMPD docs on government
- property or is there a mix with any kind of private partners they are all on
- our area commands plus
- we have them on two fire stations so yeah fire is huge a lot of people put them
- on their fire
- stations yep it's just secured areas um so no there could be talks about you
- know maybe our uh
- resort casinos might want to get some docs on some other lower buildings but we
- haven't done it yet
- there's probably talks about it but nothing yet yeah there are definitely
- agencies who have
- some private partnerships I know quick trip has installed hives on some of
- their buildings in some
- cities um we have malls who have paid for docs and put them on top of the mall
- because they have a
- lot of theft or retail crime um so there's definitely a lot of agencies out
- there that are doing the
- private side as well um happy to help you along the way if that's something you
- 're looking to do um
- couple minutes left uh what is your maintenance schedule like since your drones
- are being so
- heavily used that is a great question um we do maintenance uh minimum once a
- week we'll go and
- physically touch every dock and every drone um the good thing about skydio is
- everything's connected
- so I can see my system health it tells me when there's errors on the drones or
- if props are being
- worn down or batteries need to be swapped so trusting your technology again but
- yeah we physically go
- and touch the drones um at least once a week and then if we do so many flight
- hours we'll go and do
- certain level of maintenance on them but no it's good question you definitely
- need to maintenance
- your drones especially on the wear and tear with props and then the battery
- cycles yeah that's
- helpful um so this uh we have a trip around to florida highways saying that
- their agency requires a
- report for HDFR deployment do you have the same requirement and if so how do
- you manage the officers
- downtime while completing the report is it primarily for evidentiary purposes
- so for every single flight
- we do we have to do a post-flight report we also have to do a flight management
- log which we use a
- different system for and then for evidence um we are an axon agency so we use
- evidence.com which
- we have to manually download our flights so there is a little bit of of
- downtime and sometimes when
- you have those days we're just non-stop back-to-back flights you know that
- might be a tomorrow joey
- problem or I might be staying late and getting all my stuff caught up on admin
- um but yeah every
- flight is logged and then post-flight report on what we did you know that's
- where you saw the
- stats earlier we were first on scene if we cleared without patrol what type of
- call we went on what
- we were successful on and then on top of all that we do an internal success
- stories because our
- public information office likes to post our videos on facebook so we do logs
- for that too
- so as metro we're we're heavy on reporting so everything is logged everything
- is tracked every
- number is there um we like to have it all yeah heavy on reporting but also like
- super heavy on
- transparency and so it's worth it to make sure you know if there's any
- questions that everybody
- kind of knows what happened and why the drone was out and you know for all the
- reasons that
- everybody wants to track so um yeah that's great we are at time for those of
- you who had questions
- that I did not get to I apologize our team will absolutely follow up with you
- via email to make
- sure you get the answers to anything that you had questions for um joseph I
- appreciate you so
- much today for doing this webinar with us I think it's super helpful for
- everyone to understand
- how an agency like lvmpd who is very busy is actually managing multi-jone
- operations and what
- that means for you in your day-to-day DFR program so forever grateful thank you
- so much for hanging
- out with us if you need some more contact information you can go ahead and scan
- that QR code as I said
- the team will be uh following up with you soon joseph any last words for the
- group here no thank
- you for having me and if anybody wants to reach out to me just get in contact
- with uh noreen she'll
- send you my info and we can talk and I can help you with whatever you need
- amazing love it thank
- you so much everyone take care and stay safe have a good one bye
Watch Time
1 Hr 15 Sec