Government
BY RACHEL LELAND
Drones—not police of icers—could soon be the irst to respond on a scene following 911 calls made in Friendswood. The Friendswood Police Department will launch its drone irst responder program— where drones will be dispatched to arrive on the scene before of icers—in late 2025, Chief of Police Josh Rogers said. The department has used drones since 2019 in more limited capacities. For example, of icers could request a drone from the scene if needed or reconstruct accident scenes, according to the department’s quarterly newsletter, On Patrol. Of icers will operate the drones from three launch locations, including the public safety building at 1600 Whitaker Drive, Friendswood, and two other yet-to-be- determined locations, allowing the drones to get to anywhere in the city’s 21.2 square miles in about 60-90 seconds, Rogers said. FPD to launch drone program
In their own words
The details
The Federal Aviation Administration approved waivers for the department to y the drones up to two miles from their starting point, according to the newsletter. “We’d be able to launch [the drone] from here, someone’s manning it [and] seeing what’s going on,” Muir said. “You’re there in 30 seconds and [get] a bird’s eye view of the scene.” Rogers said the drones will not be used for general surveillance but may be used to observe suspects when serving a high-risk warrant. However, drones could be used to monitor large public events, such as Fourth of July celebrations, Muir said. The department has nine drones, but when the drone rst responder program goes into e ect, it will have a eet of 10 drones, Muir said, with 12 o cers trained to pilot the drones. Each drone is out tted with cameras with zoom and thermal imaging capabilities, Muir said. Each costs between $10,000-$30,000 , Rogers said, and the program is expected to cost $11,000 annually. The drones are battery-operated, but he said one of the drones has the ability to y 24/7 because it is always powered by a generator. “The way we’ve distributed our pilots is we have 24/7 coverage,” Muir said. “Every shift, every day, every hour of the day has someone on the table to be able to y. ... We want to be able to respond as needed with the tools we have.”
Because the drones arrive rst, Multimedia Communications Specialist Taylor McCombs said they will be able to provide dispatch and respond- ing o cers with a live video feed of the area, which helps keep the o cers safer and gives them a better, earlier assessment of what’s happening on the scene. Sgt. Scott Muir said said he hopes having the drones capture on-the-ground realities will better protect o cers and help them better understand how to deploy resources in time-sensitive situa- tions, like clearing a scene of a car accident—a task that can take up to several hours and potentially longer if there’s a fatality where evidence needs to be gathered. Currently, the department’s response time for nonemergency calls is less than seven minutes. This compares to the national average of 10 min- utes, according to the National Police Association’s website. “The exciting part is just being able to get there a little bit quicker and probably solve some issues that we weren’t able to solve until we were physically on scene,” Rogers said.
Program test results In January, Friendswood Police Department began a trial of the drone program. The results for 216 hours of testing showed:
“Quicker response times ultimately leads to more e cient police o cers, and it also leads to being
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Total calls
able to solve crimes … that were not solvable before this technology.” JOSH ROGERS, FRIENDSWOOD CHIEF OF POLICE
Calls where the drone was the rst on the scene Calls cleared by the drone
SOURCE: FRIENDSWOOD POLICE DEPARTMENT COMMUNITY IMPACT
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PEARLAND FRIENDSWOOD MANVEL EDITION
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