A Skydio X10 drone takes flight. The Dallas Police Department is using the drones for its Drone as First Responder program, which launched on May 20. [Photo: Skydio]
Daniel Comeaux
Dallas Police Chief
.…on the city’s recently launched Drone as First Responder Program.
Last week, the Dallas Police Department and Dallas Fire-Rescue launched their new Drone as First Responder program, with eight remotely piloted drones based at Dallas Fire-Rescue stations across the city. Operated out of the DPD’s Fusion/Real Time Crime Center, the Skydio X10 drones from San Mateo, California-based Skydio are designed to respond to calls for service in a two-mile radius from their base stations.
The base station locations were chosen based on heat maps of calls for police and fire service, the DPD said, adding that drone pilots “will be able to get to the scene quicker than in a squad car and begin to provide real-time intelligence and feedback to officers, as well as reduce the level of response or clear a call entirely if the incident has resolved.”
The drones have thermal cameras to capture scenes in nighttime operations, along with loudspeakers to make announcements to people on the ground.
“I challenged our team find innovative ways to continue improving our response times,” DPD Chief Daniel Comeaux said, “and this new drone unit will not only keep officers free to respond to more calls, but provide real time updates as they are responding to calls.”
“Even during our training, our pilots were able to clear three holding calls in an hour with one drone,” the chief added in a statement. “That alone proved their value to us, and I’m looking forward to seeing the benefits in both officer safety and response times.”
Justin Ball, chief of Dallas Fire-Rescue, said that by strategically docking the drones at Dallas fire stations in high-demand areas, “we are optimizing our response times and ensuring our tactics are more precise, while adding an extra layer of protection for the city.”
The DPD called the collaborative partnership between police and fire departments “a major step forward in using smart-city technology to protect both residents and first responders.”
You can see one of the drones being launched from its base station by going here.
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