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<\/p>\nST. PETERSBURG, Fla. \u2014 A new class of pilots hopes to elevate the St. Petersburg Police Department’s drone program.<\/p>\n
This week, the department hosted another round of training aimed at expanding its team of operators. This is after the department recently installed a drone hive to its fleet.<\/p>\n
On Wednesday, Officer Sydney Stine got a bird\u2019s-eye view of St. Petersburg.<\/p>\n
At her fingertips, she honed in ready to capture a possible suspect.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s passing the dumpster, approaching that white SUV,\u201d Stine relayed to the team during the exercise.<\/p>\n
This scenario was all part of hands-on training course with the St. Petersburg Police Department.<\/p>\n
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St. Petersburg Police Department hosts another round of drone training for officers. (Spectrum News\/Justina Rhines)<\/p>\n
Sgt. Robert Long, supervisor for the Real-Time Intelligence Center, helps lead the pack.<\/p>\n
\u201cRight now we\u2019re in the middle of our patrol drone course, and I am the role player of the bad guy. So very soon here, we\u2019re going to have a fake call where the drone teams have to respond to this neighborhood and locate me,\u201d he said. \u201cI will have committed a burglary on this school here, and they have to locate me and then coordinate with ground units to come find me.\u201d<\/p>\n
Officers were able to learn in the field and in the classroom.<\/p>\n
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Officers train for the drone program at the St. Petersburg Police Department. (Spectrum News\/Justina Rhines)<\/p>\n
Long explained that interest continues to soar.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe had almost three times as many people apply as we could take. So, we had almost 60 applications for 21 spots,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe drone unit really piqued my interest because I just wanted to broaden my skill set as an officer, especially a new officer, to have that kind of asset for my squad, because we don\u2019t have a lot of drones on evening shift,\u201d Stine said.<\/p>\n
Stine admitted that flying the drone is harder than she thought. \u201cIt\u2019s a lot of multitasking,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Long welcomes every curious mind to build a bigger team.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re trying to grow our drone unit as a whole. We have 11 drones throughout the department that we use. Three of those are from a dock at the station and then there are eight single deployment drones,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
He said the department has been using drones since 2019 for its SWAT team.<\/p>\n
Since then, Long has seen drones improve efficiency and safety.<\/p>\n
\u201cOn the safety side, the drones are often getting to the calls prior to the officers. So it gives the officers a real-time update from another officer of what situation they\u2019re walking into where someone may have gone, what threat level there might be, and they\u2019re able to follow more covertly in a situation where a bad guy might flee,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n