How to Incorporate Drones into Police Work: An Interview wit…

Thomas Agos is a Crime Prevention Specialist within the Gurnee Police Department situated in Gurnee, IL, and over the past 12 months he’s been working to incorporate drones into the police work he does with the division.

In lower than a 12 months the division has gone from not utilizing drones in any respect to creating an in depth UAS Operations coverage, and utilizing drones in emergency and different eventualities.

Agos already holds a distant pilot license, and 7 extra Gurnee law enforcement officials are presently learning to cross the Part 107 take a look at. All of them are Drone Pilot Ground School college students—study extra about how we might help you cross the Part 107 take a look at right here.

We know that many public companies are presently working to incorporate drones into their operations, so we needed to hear extra from Agos on how he helped construct the UAV program in Gurnee.

Read on to discover out.

Tom Agos makes use of a drone to assess injury following a flood

Want to see the Gurnee Police Department’s UAS Operations coverage handbook?

Download the total doc right here. (Shared with permission from the Gurnee Police Department. To unlock the doc for modifying, use the password gurnee.)

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Begin Interview:

UAV Coach: Tell us about your work with the Gurnee Police Department. What do you do, and the way lengthy have you ever been doing it?

Thomas Agos: I’m a 30-year worker of the Gurnee Police Department. I did 20 years on the road in patrol, after which for the final ten years I’ve been within the workplace engaged on particular initiatives, crime prevention, crime evaluation, and budgeting.

As a part of that job I stumbled throughout the UAV world, and located it fascinating. I knew immediately that this was expertise that we’d find a way to use for public security. So I began pursuing that, selecting away at that thread, and finally we bought to the purpose the place we’re at the moment.

UAV Coach: Adoption of a UAV program inside a public company—or any group for that matter—can require some work to shift the institutional tradition, and assist folks grow to be conscious of the worth of utilizing drones. What sorts of challenges have you ever confronted as you constructed the UAV program for the Gurnee Police Department, and the way have you ever overcome them?

Thomas Agos: I like to say that we have been blessed again in July, 2016 as a result of we had a propane tank fireplace.

Propane tanks have been truly exploding on account of this fireplace, they usually have been flying throughout the commercial park the place the hearth was situated. At the time I had my very own private DJI Phantom three, and I used to be ready to present air assist for the hearth division so they might get a view of the scene from the air.

This info was essential in serving to to decide when fireplace fighters may need to have folks evacuate, and the way far out the evacuation zone ought to be—whether or not it ought to be a quarter mile, a half mile, one mile, and many others., as a result of there have been two 20,000 gallon tanks that have been shut to that fireside that they have been very involved about.

Using my Phantom three I used to be ready to talk to the command submit precisely the place the recent spots have been nonetheless burning. With this info they repositioned some property so as to find a way to tamp these fires down, and the entire scenario stabilized shortly thereafter.

And for this reason I like to say that we have been blessed by the hearth, as a result of everybody concerned in that case, each from the hearth division and from legislation enforcement, they have been all immediately offered on the need of getting this expertise accessible and having the ability to deploy it rapidly in a time of disaster.

After that, the choice was made to purchase a drone for the police division.

As we have been doing analysis an area development agency named J.J. Henderson Construction, which often offers us with funds on an annual foundation, approached the division and provided to purchase the drone for us. Everything fell into place from there.

[As a side note, the Gurnee Police Department would like to give a big thank you to J.J. Henderson Construction for all of their support.]

UAV Coach: After you bought buy-in inside the division, what have been your subsequent steps for beginning to construct the UAV program?

Thomas Agos: After we obtained the funds we bought a Phantom four for the division.

At the identical time I began the method of making use of for a COA with the FAA. Also throughout that point, roughly starting in January of this 12 months, I enrolled myself in Drone Pilot Ground School to assist examine for the Part 107 take a look at.

Fast ahead simply ten months, and at the moment I’ve my distant pilot license and we’ve got a staff of seven officers learning to cross the Part 107 take a look at. By the top of this 12 months we can have a cohesive staff of seven officers plus myself, and we’ll be succesful and prepared at any given time to use this tools for public security functions.

UAV Coach: Can you inform us about deciding to pursue each a COA and a distant pilot license—what was the thought course of there?

Thomas Agos: Just to make clear, we’ve utilized for a COA however we haven’t heard again from the FAA but.

But to reply your query, we really feel prefer it’s good to do each as a result of it provides a sure air of professionalism to this system.

The licensing of the pilots is for the profit and safety of our officers, to reassure the general public that we’re taking all accountable steps to do issues safely and by the e-book, and it’s additionally for our insurance coverage provider.

We acknowledge that flying a drone isn’t a recreation. It can come down and harm folks, and it will probably trigger insurance coverage claims of monumental magnitude, and so we would like our staff to be professionally skilled. These are the issues you want to take into account if you’re a pilot in charge of one in all these missions, and we take that very significantly.

Aerial shot of Gurnee following a flood

UAV Coach: How do you see drones being integrated into common actions with the police division? Will the usage of drones be reactive, as fires or different eventualities come up, or are there common actions deliberate on your UAV program?

Thomas Agos: I feel it’s going to be each.

The cause I say that’s as a result of, as you already know, a UAV just isn’t one thing that you just simply pull out of the closet each six months and go play with. The drone has to be maintained and inspected, and your pilot abilities have to be maintained for you to be prepared to fly at a second’s discover.

Along these strains, whereas our staff is learning for the Part 107 take a look at we’re placing collectively a flight schedule that requires common, ongoing outside and indoor flights to ensure that these abilities to proceed growing and be maintained.

Indoor coaching is vital to us. Even although it’s not technically coated by FAA rules, there may very well be a hostage scenario or some type of energetic shooter scenario the place the very best transfer is to attempt to ship a drone into a constructing. And as you already know, flying indoors requires coaching for proficiency, since issues get squirrelly when there’s no GPS.

In addition to flight coaching and upkeep, every officer on the staff can have a selected duty associated to the UAV program. For instance, one will likely be accountable for budgeting; one other will likely be accountable for laws; one other will likely be concerned in policymaking; one other will likely be accountable for tools upkeep, and so forth.

There’s nothing worse than going to get a bit of apparatus throughout an emergency, and discovering that it’s not prepared to fly. If you don’t keep on high of the agency ware, and for those who don’t keep on high of the batteries, it’s totally attainable that you just received’t find a way to deploy it.

We’re additionally going to have log books, and a system of accountability in order that we’ve got a paper path for reporting necessities, and to be sure that the system is prepared to fly at a second’s discover.

UAV Coach: How did you develop the UAS Operations coverage handbook that you just now have in place? Did you employ present assets, or construct all of it your self, or some mixture of the 2?

Thomas Agos: The International Association of Chiefs of Police launched a mannequin coverage relating to UAVs a short while again. Then shortly thereafter, the Illinois Association of Chiefs of Police did the identical factor.

Internally we took these two insurance policies, and we merged them with our personal ideas about how we needed this system to function, additionally ensuring to incorporate the FAA’s Part 107 guidelines. This was not a quick course of.

But we labored by it, and finally we got here up with a single doc, our UAS Operations coverage handbook, which all of our officers have to log out on no matter whether or not or not they’re operators.

UAV Coach: Given that drones can typically face adverse PR on the town councils due to privateness considerations, did you face any pushback in Gurnee, politically or in any other case, as you have been working to incorporate UAVs into the police division?

Thomas Agos: No, we’ve been very lucky in that regard.

In our group we’ve had numerous assist from the general public and elected officers.

I feel that largely it is because we’ve labored exhausting to strategy our UAV program professionally, overtly, and transparently, and with the emphasis that we see the drone as an vital instrument for sure jobs, not as a toy to use casually in any given circumstance.

We be sure to overtly focus on and emphasize the proficiency and coaching of our officers, and this strategy appears to have anticipated and addressed considerations earlier than they actually arose.

UAV Coach: Do you’ve got any remaining phrases of recommendation for different folks working in police departments or public companies who’re making an attempt to incorporate drones into their operations?

Thomas Agos:  I’d say to simply take a look at it from a extremely fundamental, sensible perspective.

What are you making an attempt to accomplish? What are your objectives? How are you going to reassure your public that you just’re utilizing it for his or her good, and so forth.

Along the best way there will likely be numerous trial and error. Some issues will work and others received’t. But after working rigorously for a whilst you’ll carry your head up and notice that, shock, you even have a functioning, efficient UAV unit in your police division. And that could be a fantastic place to get to.

Thomas Agos is pleased to be a useful resource for others wanting to incorporate drones into their work with public companies.

Please contact Zacc Dukowitz at zacc[at]uavcoach[dot]com for Agos’ contact info.