Fort Worth PD ‘test drives’ vendors’ DFR systems
By DRONELIFE Features Editor Jim Magill
As police departments across the country are increasingly adding drones as first responder programs to their arsenal of law enforcement tools, each agency has to make decisions as to what set of DFR systems will best fit the needs of their particular community.
The Fort Worth Police Department, which recently launched its own DFR operation, is taking a test-drive type approach to those questions by comparing the operations of several vendor companies. The department has started a one-year trial period deploying two drones, along with the associated docks and software provided by Flock, which currently holds a contract with the city to provide license plate readers and other public safety devices.
The plan calls for the department to compare the operations of the Flock system with those of other U.S.-based vendor companies, such as Skydio and Brinc.
Sergeant Erik Lavigne, supervisor of the Fort Worth Real-Time Crime Center (RTCC), said that in establishing its DFR program, the department has looked to other cities that have already had their own established programs.
“We saw other agencies having really good success and we wanted to mold it towards the Fort Worth way, which is we’re not being beholden to any one company,” he said in an interview with DroneLife.
“We wanted to issue a challenge to these vendors that make the drones that says, ‘Hey, we want to try your stuff out for a year to decide who we want to go with,’ because we don’t want to buy something and then it end up not working out the way we thought it would.”
In addition to the Skydio system, the PD is also planning on testing out a Skydio DFR system sometime in the near future, Lavinge said.
“We’re going to get a couple drones from Skydio, and we’re going to put them on another side of the city that has a similar call load,” he said. “And then when we eventually get the Brincs, we’re going to take a couple of the Brincs and do the same thing on another side of the city.”
After the trial run, the department will evaluate the different systems, based on which system the department’s pilots find easier to operate and how the various systems operate in Fort Worth’s climate, which can range from scorching hot summers to icy wintry weather.
Lavinge envisioned a future in which the Fort Worth PD is able to acquire enough drones and associated equipment to provide citywide DFR coverage, said.
The department did a mock-up exercise to determine how many drones might be required to provide coverage for just one section of the city, which comprises the department’s central division. “That was 17 to 20 drones to cover that part of the city and to have a 90-second response time,” he said.
He estimated that in order to provide full coverage for the entire city would require a fleet of between 80 to 100 drones. The total number would depend on the type of drone purchased, as some vendors are offering drones with extended flight times.
“Skydio, I know, has a drone coming out that’s a fixed-wing and can fly for 90 minutes,” he said. “The idea is to get a mesh network system so they (the drones) can leapfrog over each other, if you’ve got a pursuit or you’re tracking something.” He added that he thinks that eventually drones are going to take the place of helicopters in standard police operations.
Benefits of DFR program highlighted
In a recent press conference, announcing the launch of the department’s new DFR program, Police Chief Eddie Garcia emphasized the benefits of the program to the department and the greater community.
“The drone as first responder program is about getting our officers and first responders better information faster so they can make better decisions when seconds matter. The goal: safer outcomes for officers, victims, suspects and the public,” he said.
“The long-term vision is citywide coverage across all six patrol divisions throughout the city of Fort Worth,” Garcia said. “The department is currently participating in a one-year, no-cost trial partnership with Flock Safety that began on May 8.”
Under the city’s contract with Flock, the vendor will lease the equipment to the FWPD, while the department will own 100% of the data captured by the drones, said spokesman Paris Lewbel.
“At its core, drone as first responder is designed to give first responders real-time situational awareness when seconds count,” Lewbel said.
He sought to alleviate privacy concerns surrounding the city’s use of Flock technology which integrates security systems such as license plate readers with its UAV systems.
Upon dispatch, after the drone rises to a cruising altitude, it sets its camera to the horizon in order to avoid recording people going about their lives on the ground below. Only when it arrives on the scene is the camera angled downward to the site of the incident below.
“And then each flight is logged, and information on each flight is available on a public transparency portal so the community can better understand how the technology is actually being used,” he said.
DFR proves its worth
Lavinge said that after only a few weeks of operation, the city’s Flock DFR system already has proven itself to be an effective crime-fighting tool. Recently, dispatchers received a report of a man firing a gun in a residential area. Officers were dispatched to the scene, but rather than respond to the what could have proven to be a dangerous situation, they relied on a drone to arrive to get an eye in the sky.
“We waited. Rather than pushing the issue with him having a gun in his hand and walking around, we waited for him to get to his vehicle in a seated position. The drone was able to see on the video him putting the gun to the side, and that’s when we told officers to move in,” he said. “I don’t know if he would’ve had any ill intent, but it didn’t come to that.”
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Jim Magill is a Houston-based writer with almost a quarter-century of experience covering technical and economic developments in the oil and gas industry. After retiring in December 2019 as a senior editor with S&P Global Platts, Jim began writing about emerging technologies, such as artificial intelligence, robots and drones, and the ways in which they’re contributing to our society. In addition to DroneLife, Jim is a contributor to Forbes.com and his work has appeared in the Houston Chronicle, U.S. News & World Report, and Unmanned Systems, a publication of the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International
