More Top Picks Best Ups Battery Backups
player ready...Skokie’s Board of Trustees has unanimously approved purchasing a $31,096.90 DJI Matrice M300 drone for the Skokie Police Department.
The order will include the “drone body, control system, a thermal imaging camera with zoom capability, a spotlight, batteries, cables, connectors and all other necessary hardware and accessories,” according to a memo prepared by Chief of Police Brian Baker and Assistance Finance Director Michael Aleksic.
Skokie already has a drone for police use but this new drone “can be deployed in virtually all weather conditions including rain, snow and high winds,” the memo states. The new drone has a nearly double flight time length than the current one with a 50% longer flight range. It also comes with a better camera.
“The requested (drone) is equipped with a substantially more powerful thermal imaging camera, accompanied with a 23 times optical zoom lens and a 200 times digital zoom capability,” the memo states. “These optics would greatly increase the number of successful public safety flight missions while also providing greater detail to command staff and other parties.”
Skokie’s new drone will come from RMUS Unmanned Solutions in Centerville, Utah. The two other bids were from California-based Dronefly at $32,302 and Canada-based Volatus Drones at $32,237. The memo states that the 2024 budget allocated $33,000 to purchase a drone or other unmanned aircraft system.
Baker and Aleksic wrote in the memo the department would like to receive the drone before the Fourth of July.
“The Skokie Police Department currently has two Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS),” explained Baker in an email to Pioneer Press after the meeting. “The purchase approved by the Village Board provides funds for a new UAS with increased capabilities, including a much longer flight time, improved ability to operate in inclement weather conditions, and significantly improved visual and thermal clarity and zoom capability.
“The department utilizes UAS when doing so can help prevent imminent harm to life, forestall the imminent escape of a suspect, or prevent the destruction of evidence. UAS are also utilized to search for missing persons and to obtain crime scene and traffic crash photography.”
Earlier this week, the Chico Police Department in Chico, California, used a drone to locate a suspect with a history of weapon possession after officers heard the suspect calling out from a nearby roof, according to the Chico Enterprise-Record.
Drone usage was a point of contention in Evanston’s 2023 City Council election for the 2nd and 9th Ward seats. Candidates were asked about the Evanston Police Department’s drone use and if the candidates would support purchasing drones in the future during a Community Alliance for Better Government candidate forum. Many candidates expressed that drone usage requires ethical considerations to limit invading resident privacy.
“One way to prevent crime is community, by being able to initiate a (sense of) community with all different types of neighbors,” Evanston candidate Kathy Hayes said. “Drones and other (gadgets) are just an added tool but the primary thing to divert and eliminate crime is having and rebuilding community.”
One candidate, incumbent Evanston Councilmember Krissie Harris, said drone use is for the benefit of the community as a whole when it comes to law enforcement.
“We want (others’) privacy invaded when we’re harmed, and then we don’t want to engage when other people are the victim,” Harris said. “(We should ask ourselves) how do we engage the community to ensure the ‘see something’ philosophy is used … when it’s in the benefit of the whole.”
…