Drone to give Latrobe eye in the sky for police, firefighters

A new eye in the sky soon will be assisting Latrobe police in their pursuit of suspects or search for missing citizens.

City council approved the purchase of a $14,000 drone.

“I’m excited about the drone program,” city manager Terry Carcella said. “This is the future of policing. It will allow us to do things we couldn’t do before with watching and tracking people.”

Police Chief Richard Bosco said the drone will be purchased promptly and will be available for deployment once designated officers have completed training in its use and FAA requirements have been met. Bosco said he’d like to begin by having four officers trained to control the drone but ultimately would like to have two officers directly associated with its use.

The drone can fly rapidly over the community and recognize details from far above ground, Bosco said.

It comes with an optical camera capable of magnifying images up to 26 times and a digital camera with 200x magnification, according to police Captain Rob Daerr.

“It’s as clear as day,” Daerr said of the image quality.

Said Bosco: “If somebody calls and says there is a man standing by the fence line at the swimming pool and he looks like he has something really suspicious, we can put the drone in the air and zoom down on that guy. From 150 feet in the air at 200-power zoom, I can read his wristwatch and see exactly what’s in his hand. Does he have a gun, or is it a walkie-talkie? You can make real-time assessments.”

The drone also will have an infrared camera that can detect heat emanating from areas on the roof of a burning structure, Daerr said.

“It will tell you the heat from 100 feet up,” he said. “If the fire department had to go on that roof, they’re going to know what portions of that roof are extremely hot compared to what’s cooler and may be safer to walk on.”

Latrobe fire Chief John Brasile said his department has similar infrared cameras but they are hand-held and require firefighters to be at the scene to use them.

Bosco said the new drone could be launched from the parking lot of city hall, flown as fast as 50 mph to a crime or fire scene and provide valuable images well before police or first responders could arrive by vehicle.

“One of the great things about it is the rapid response,” Bosco said. “It can be to the other side of town, giving us back in real time everything it sees along the way.”

Under FAA rules, the operator must keep the drone within sight.

Councilman Jim Kelley asked during the voting session Monday how the drone would be operated while protecting people’s privacy.

Carcella said police usually will fly the drone over public rights-of-way.

Bosco said that, in using the drone, police must comply with laws regarding search and seizure and would not use the device in an attempt to detect properties with overgrown grass or other maintenance issues.

He said the drone could be deployed in “a hostile, felonious situation — shots fired or aggravated assault against a resident.”

“We also have a right to protect the officers responding to that situation,” Bosco said. “Everything that we would do would absolutely be under the parameters of the color of the law.”

The drone weighs about 3.5 pounds and is about 3 feet long when fully extended, Daerr said. The drone is advertised to have a flight time of up to 41 minutes.

“It’s smart enough to know when it’s drained itself down to a certain level and how far away it is from its home point,” Daerr said. “It will actually return home, land itself and ask for a new battery.”

The drone, Bosco said, is “another added layer of security. Anything that we can do to protect the citizens of Latrobe, we’re going to do. Any assets that we can obtain, we’re going to do it.

“We’re constantly looking for that next step to make sure we have the most utilitarian equipment necessary to be successful to protect the city.”

A $16,000 donation from Mary Lou Rossi will cover the drone purchase and some training costs for officers, Bosco said.

According to Carcella, the donation has allowed the city to put to other uses $30,000 that had been budgeted for the drone program. About half of that was used to purchase 18 new 9 mm Glock handguns and accessories for the police department, he said.