Spokane PD to get 4 Skydio drones for World Cup security
By DRONELIFE Features Editor Jim Magill
The Spokane, Washington Police Department will get four new American-made drones to assist it in providing security surrounding a practice facility for a national team participating in the FIFA World Cup soccer tournament.
On April 20, the Spokane City Council approved the expenditure of $127,000 for the department to purchase four Skydio X10 UAVs and related equipment. Spokane will host Team Egypt, which will use Gonzaga University as its base camp and practice site in preparation for its participation in the international tournament.
The city will initially pay for the unmanned aerial systems, and later seek reimbursement from federal grants established to fund security operations for World Cup events.
“We were looking at funding for the purchases of drones that would help with overwatch and security for a practice site for FIFA,” Sgt. Craig Hamilton, director of the Spokane PD’s drone unit said in an interview.
The purchase of the American-made Skydio technology will be the first for the Spokane PD, whose current drone fleet is made up of DJI products and other Chinese-made UAVs. Hamilton said the police department selected Skydio as the provider in part because of the Federal Communications Commission’s ban on the sale of new drones and equipment from certain foreign-owned UAVs and equipment, as well as restrictions tied to the use of federal funds.
“With the federal grant that this is being purchased with, obviously DJI does not fall under that umbrella of approved drones,” he said. “But also, Skydio provides some benefits, with its software package and flying over LLTE (4G wireless standard). So, the range is great.”
According to the Skydio website, the X10 has a maximum flight speed of 45 mph and flight duration of 40 minutes. It is rated with an IP55 certification, giving it high marks for dust and water resistance. It comes equipped with onboard thermal imaging, and can be equipped with multiple camera and sensor packages to provide enhanced telephoto and night-vision images.
Hamilton said another advantage of the Skydio X10 is it comes equipped with a parachute, which allows the drone to meet FAA guidelines for flying over people. “Not that we plan on flying over the crowds per se, but if for some reason we needed to, they do come equipped with a parachute,” he said.
Currently the backbone of the department’s drone fleet consists of four DJI M4TD drones. The drone unit also deploys several products produced by another Chinese manufacturer, Autel, including the Dragonfish fixed-wing. vertical takeoff and landing aircraft designed for long endurance missions, and as well as a Autel drone with a night-sense camera.
The police department plans to use its new X10 aircraft to serve as a platform to provide an overwatch above Team Egypt’s practice sessions and to act as an eye in the sky to spot any potential issues. Hamilton added that the UAVs will not be used to routinely fly over crowds of soccer fans if that can be avoided.
“The way we deploy, we’re not sitting right over top of a crowd watching it. We have some different tactics that we use to monitor events for safety reasons,” he said. “We’re watching for vehicles that look suspicious. We’re watching for packages that are suspicious. We’re watching for people that are behaving in a suspicious manner, and any type of vehicles that may be determined to be a threat.”
Likewise, the police will not use the drones to conduct surveillance of any protests that might arise, a concern that was raised at the City Council during the meeting when the drone purchase was approved. Hamilton said the department’s policy strictly prohibits that type of drone use.
“We’re firm believers in the U.S. Constitution. And protesting, as long as it’s done legally, is a constitutional right,” he said. “That being said, sometimes the intelligence that we receive will dictate on whether or not we put a drone up.”
Having a drone aloft in the vicinity of a protest does not necessarily mean that the police are using the UAV to identify or record the protesters themselves, Hamilton said.
“But sometimes there are counter-protestors and issues that arise when you have counter-protestors. And then, sometimes there are fights. Sometimes there are assaults, crimes that are committed and things like that.”
City not eligible for counter-UAS funding
Unlike Seattle, which will host six World Cup matches, Spokane was not eligible to receive federal funding earmarked for establishing counter-UAS operations. However, the Spokane County Sheriff’s department has had one of its deputies go through the FBI counter-UAS training course at Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville, Alabama, Hamilton said.
“That doesn’t mean that we don’t have other contingencies in place,” he said. The Spokane PD is conducting a public education campaign, informing UAV pilots of the no-fly zones that will be put into effect around FIFA-associated locations.
While such efforts might be sufficient to ensure that legitimate drone pilots know about the rules and follow them, the police department must still plan to deal with the potential threat of drones flown by bad actors seeking to do harm or create mischief, Hamilton said.
“I don’t want to give away all of our secrets, but it’s going to be more about the drone detection side of things,” he said.
Currently, the department’s drone unit operates on a full-time basis, flying in support of patrol officers and helping to reduce those officers’ work load. With the opening of the World Cup games in early summer, the unit is just beginning to get a glimpse into how much its role will expand as it takes on additional security duties.
“I perceive June is going to be very busy for our unit and we’re already probably one of the most heavily used specialty units in the department,” Hamilton said.
Read more:
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.
