At the most recent City Council meeting, officials gave Arlington Police Department permission to use of about $202,000 in Department of Homeland Security grant money to buy two small unmanned aircraft.
The aircraft, known as Leptron Avengers, are battery-operated helicopters designed to take high-resolution video and photos and that can be equipped with night-vision cameras or thermal-imaging equipment.
The city, working with the Federal Aviation Administration and the U.S. Justice Department, is participating in a national evaluation program to help develop training and equipment standards for agencies to use the aircraft as crime-fighting tools.
Arlington police tested a few different unmanned aircraft systems this year but favoured the Leptron Avenger, an 11-pound, 58-inch electric helicopter that can fly up to 40 mph. The devices, operated by remote control, are able to automatically return to their starting point if they lose communication with the remote control. “The technology fit our needs,” said Tiara Ellis Richard in the Arlington Police Office of Communication.
During the testing phase, Arlington’s flight area is restricted to secured, city-owned land at the north end of Lake Arlington. The city plans to seek FAA authorization to deploy the aircraft next year in actual missions, Richard said. “We are only training in that one area. We are not using it for police work at all,” Richard said.
The aircraft could be used for situations such as search and rescue, multi-car pileups or to help officers determine if a barricaded suspect has a weapon, police have said. The surveillance equipment would not be used for routine patrols.
She says that the UAS will be used only in specific cases, like if someone is lost in the woods or when hazardous materials make accessing a scene difficult. “You don’t want to send a human into those situations, or even an animal,” she says.
Another use would be to take remote photos of crime scenes. Richard recalls a highway pileup earlier this year involving more than 50 vehicles. Before the road could be cleared, the whole thing had to be documented.
“Getting the dozens of cars photographed took hours,” Richard says. Calling out the UAS and its camera to fly overhead would have dramatically reduced the amount of time to document the accident and clear the road. “It can preserve a crime scene in a way we couldn’t do before.”
Sources: Star Telegram; The Atlantic Cities