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Jim Cooper, the sheriff of Sacramento County, California, said Monday that drones will continue to play a major role in law enforcement, after his department disarmed a suspect using a drone earlier this month.
“The future is drones. Obviously, we use them a lot to make entry into houses, I mean, on a regular basis,” Cooper told host Blake Burman on NewsNation’s “The Hill.”
“We’ll enter some residences during [an] emergency situation and go in there. So definitely the future. They work, they’re cheap, they save lives.”
On Monday, the Sacramento County Sheriff’s Office said it used a drone to disarm a known felon and parolee-at-large who was hiding in the corner of a garage.
The Sacramento County Sheriff’s Office wrote on social media that its special enforcement, or SWAT, unit surrounded the residence after the suspect was seen earlier with a firearm.
After the suspect did not respond to negotiators, drone pilots located the suspect’s hiding spot using the aircraft and determined he had a knife.
“Rather than rush into a potentially deadly encounter, one drone pilot came up with an innovative solution,” the social media post said. “By attaching a powerful magnet to the drone, the pilot was able to safely remove the knife from the suspect’s hand before deputies moved in.”
“It was an incredible display of creativity, skill, and precision by the drone pilot.”
The sheriff’s office claimed the action marked the first time in U.S. history that law enforcement personnel used a drone to successfully disarm an armed suspect.
The sheriff’s office also shared a video of the resolution — which starts with an officer operating the drone and later includes footage — captured by a drone — of another drone removing the knife from the suspect’s grasp.
Cooper told Burman the suspect was initially responsive to law enforcement but was later unresponsive. He noted the individual appeared unconscious in the garage and “may have overdosed.”
The Sacramento County sheriff said a patrolman had the idea to attach a magnet to the drone to disarm the suspect.
“These guys are good,” he added, referring to drones. “We use them all the time to fly into houses, through a garage door, doggy doors.”
“And it really helps us. And obviously it makes us better decisionmakers if we have to go in their house with a SWAT team.”
As of March 2020, more than 1,500 state and local police, sheriff, fire and emergency services agencies were believed to have drones, according to the Bard College Center for the Study of the Drone. For 283 agencies, it cost more than $8.4 million combined to acquire the equipment, the center found.
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has raised concerns about law enforcement’s use of drones, particularly with respect to privacy.
While the ACLU says drones “have many beneficial uses,” including in search-and-rescue missions, unmanned aircraft “equipped with facial recognition software, infrared technology, and speakers capable of monitoring personal conversations would cause unprecedented invasions of our privacy rights.”
The organization also recommends certain safeguards for drone usage by law enforcement, including a requirement that police can only deploy them when they have a warrant.
Cooper, though, argued law enforcement’s use of drones saves lives and speeds up response times.
“It possibly saved someone’s life, preventing us from taking a life,” the sheriff told Burman, referring to his department disarming the suspect. “So, it’s a win-win all the way around for everyone.”
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