{"id":307355,"date":"2026-05-09T07:05:09","date_gmt":"2026-05-09T07:05:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/307355\/"},"modified":"2026-05-09T07:05:09","modified_gmt":"2026-05-09T07:05:09","slug":"oakland-county-sheriff-says-drone-helped-locate-man-who-fired-shots-in-wooded-area","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/307355\/","title":{"rendered":"Oakland County sheriff says drone helped locate man who fired shots in wooded area"},"content":{"rendered":"

Over the past few weeks, there has been a lot of controversy over the Oakland County Sheriff’s Office using drones<\/a>; however, Sheriff Mike Bouchard tells CBS Detroit that a terrifying scene outside of a domestic violence center might not have been resolved if it weren’t for the technology.<\/p>\n

Bouchard says the occupants of a domestic violence center in Pontiac were concerned after a 21-year-old man, wearing camouflage, was seen getting out of his vehicle and heading toward a wooded area behind the center. Bouchard says the man had multiple weapons.<\/p>\n

The sheriff’s office responded quickly, sending a drone into the air to track the individual before deputies approached the man.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“The drone was able to quickly spot him and share that information with responding deputies about where he is and how to approach,” said Bouchard.<\/p>\n

The suspect, Joseph Edward Smith, was surrounded and arrested while wearing camouflage and a tactical belt containing multiple boxes of ammunition. Smith claimed he was using the area for target practice and admitted he purchased the rifle on the street, according to Bouchard.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Bouchard credits the drones for de-escalating the situation.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“The DFR program, which again we’ve been doing for four years, is focused on an incident response to a call for service and emergency. Lost child, alzheimer’s patient, and it gives us a quick what’s going on, how can we better save that person, and resolve that situation, and that’s exactly what’s going on here,” said Bouchard.<\/p>\n

The domestic violence center credits law enforcement and their employee, saying in part, “Their response reinforced what we already know: our clients’ safety is valued, protected, and taken seriously. Haven is a place of healing, hope, and accountability. It is not a place to commit crime.”\u00a0<\/p>\n

The sheriff’s office says it is unclear if the suspect knew anyone inside the shelter.<\/p>\n

\n More from CBS News\n <\/p>\n

In:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Over the past few weeks, there has been a lot of controversy over the Oakland County Sheriff’s Office…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":307356,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[44508,143,46856,145,144,3131],"class_list":["post-307355","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-oakland","tag-drone","tag-oakland","tag-oakland-county-sheriff039s-office","tag-oakland-headlines","tag-oakland-news","tag-pontiac"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/307355","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=307355"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/307355\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/307356"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=307355"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=307355"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=307355"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}