Drones Becoming Popular Tools Used by Police, Fire Departments in Eastern IA

Emily Andersen
The Gazette, Cedar Rapids, Iowa
(TNS)

Mar. 28—CEDAR RAPIDS — Drones, or unmanned aircraft systems, have become increasingly popular tools used by police departments and fire departments in Eastern Iowa.

The drones are used for everything from tracking suspects or missing people to investigating bomb threats to helping firefighters see through smoke when fighting a fire.

The Cedar Rapids Fire Department and the Linn County Sheriff’s Office, for example, used a drone earlier this month to pinpoint the location of a smoldering fire after a grain elevator exploded at the Archer Daniels Midland plant in southwest Cedar Rapids.

The Decorah Fire Department in northeast Iowa has been using drones since 2014 — longer than most departments in the state.

At the time, the city had to get a special certificate to own and pilot a drone because the Federal Aviation Administration hadn’t yet created the remote pilot certification process.

Now, all drone pilots must be certified under the FAA’s small unmanned aircraft systems rule (part 107). Drone pilots in law enforcement and public safety often have additional training on how to use the drones appropriately in their work.

River rescues

One reason Decorah firefighters wanted a drone was because of the numerous river rescue calls the department receives about people tubing and canoeing the Upper Iowa River, which lows through the city.

The drones have drastically decreased response times to those calls, according to Zach Kerndt, one of the department’s four drone pilots.

The drones “give us a much better idea of where people are, generally, because the information we receive from our dispatch center is very vague,” he said.

“The information we usually get is, they put in at this spot or this bridge, and they’re getting out at this bridge, and they’re somewhere in between.

“Having a drone really cuts down on the man-hours it takes to find someone because we can find them with the drone … and come up with a plan,” Kerndt said.

The department has two drones, which are used about 20 times a year, Kerndt said.

The drones also are used during fires and in missing person cases.

Since the drones have infrared cameras, they can see through smoke in a fire and can help firefighters on an aerial truck better aim water on what’s burning.

Linn County

In law enforcement, the devices are often used to help officers get a clear picture from above of a crime scene or crash scene.

The Linn County Sheriff’s Office has four drones — two large ones, two small ones — and nine trained pilots, according to Lt. Dave Beuter.

“It’s a real-time depiction of the scene, of the environment, whether there’s snow on the ground, whether the trees have leaves on them,” Beuter said.

“Especially with criminal investigations, it’s nice to have those images from the drone,” he said. “You can go up in the air, even like 10 feet up in the air, and do an angle shot back into whatever you’re looking at. It’s a lot better depiction of what’s seen than what just a simple photograph does.”

The Sheriff’s Office started using the drones in 2017, after Beuter and another lieutenant won a drone at a conference and then sought out training so they could use it.

The Iowa State Patrol started using drones in 2020, when it bought 10 drones. It now has 21 drones, which it primarily uses for crash reconstruction, according to the patrol’s public information officer

Cedar Rapids

The Cedar Rapids Police Department is currently readying its large drone, bought three years ago with a grant, for use in crash reconstruction.

The department currently employs a FARO 3D scanning system that is positioned around a crash scene and uses lasers to create a 3D reconstruction of the scene.

The drone will speed up that process and also provide photos that can be overlaid on a 3D crash depiction.

The Cedar Rapids Hazardous Devices Unit — with team members from public safety departments in Linn County — bought the drone three years ago, mainly to examine hazardous devices/bombs from a distance.

“Let’s say we had an improvised or suspicious device that could be out in an area that, based on some of the initial intelligence that we have, we may want to get a better look at photos of that,” said Dan Jabens, commander of the Hazardous Devices Unit.

“Instead of sending a person down there to put them in harm’s way, we would use the drone … to get better pictures and allow us to develop a game plan on how we want to mitigate that device,” he said.

The drone can carry up to 5 pounds, Jabens said. If an object seems especially suspicious. The drone can carry a mitigation charge over the object to remotely disable it, if it’s a bomb.

“To do a remote reconnaissance on a device somewhere would take hours if we had to work our way around and use traditional camera systems,” Jabens said. “With this, within a minute or two, we can clearly have a picture of what our device is, what we’re looking at, and what the best way to mitigate that would be,”

The Cedar Rapids Police Department has seven officers trained as drone pilots and hope to train more so the device can be used in additional scenarios.

There are situations where a drone cannot legally be used to the fullest extent of its abilities, according to Jabens, such as using it to view private property.

For example, using a drone to search someone’s property from above, or to look through someone’s window, without a warrant likely would violate the Fourth Amendment, which prohibits unreasonable search and seizure.

The department’s drone procedure policy states that drones “shall not intentionally be used for the purpose of gathering evidence or other information, or to intentionally view, record or transmit images or video” around a residence or any other location where “a person has a reasonable expectation of privacy.”

Comments: (319) 398-8328; emily.andersen@thegazette.com

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