Montgomery Co. police makes case for drone first responders to Wheaton residents
The police department in Montgomery County, Maryland, hopes it will be able to use drones to respond to some 911 calls starting this fall.
It is called the “Drone as First Responder” program and, ahead of asking the county’s council to green light the program, the police department is seeking the support of the communities in which the drones will be tested.
“We need to start thinking [about] how can we use technology to try to help achieve our mission of high-quality service to you all here in the room,” said Capt. Jason Cokinos, director of special operations at the Montgomery County Police Department.
Speaking to a room of residents at the Wheaton Community Center on Tuesday night, Cokinos said a “staffing crisis” for the department has them looking to better response times and help the department decide whether or not patrol officers need to respond to a scene.
The department would need $350,000 to start the pilot program which would likely place drones in Wheaton and Silver Spring. Once in place, members of the department would help drone pilots in Rockville with deploying the aircraft. Each drone can cover up to a 3-mile radius.
“There’s a lot of broad implications for policy and privacy that need to be thought through,” said Rob Landau, a resident of Silver Spring and a member of the Silver Spring Justice Coalition — which “aims to reduce the presence of police in our communities,” according to its website.
Cokinos said use of the drones would be limited and there are strict guidelines as to how they would be used.
“We’re not going to be flying surveillance, we’re not going to be using facial recognition, we’re not going to be doing audio intercepts,” Cokinos said. “This is only to fly to and from 911 calls for emergency.”
Cokinos said when a 911 call comes in, the department would determine if a drone should be the first to respond.
“If we get a robbery, a fight in progress, a personal injury, car collision, shoplifting, suspicious individuals that might be casing a business or something for a burglary, anything that is a crime in progress, or some type of emergency that we may be able to respond to and assist with getting there quickly,” Cokinos said.
He told the crowd the craft could potentially get some calls before a suspect leaves and help patrol officers catch up to those who committed a crime.
“I think we have the cart before the horse or the drone before the regulations,” Landau said.
Cokinos said the same regulations that govern how police body cameras and dash camera footage are used and stored would apply to the video shot by the drones.
Longtime resident of the Glenmont-Wheaton area Michael Gelman said while he shared the concerns about privacy and surveillance, he does support the program to handle a lack of police officers that exists right now.
“If we can’t have people, then we need some kind of temporary solution,” Gelman said.
Montgomery County Council member Natali Fani-González, who represents Wheaton, helped organize the event and said she supports the program because Wheaton is in a crisis when it comes to crime
“At this point, we’re really desperate to get ways of really helping people and businesses in the area and ensure that they feel safe, to walk to buy groceries and take their kids to school,” Fani-González said.
Regarding the privacy and surveillance concerns, Fani-González said she supports the program because it will not be used to monitor gatherings or rallies.
“This is not to be Uncle Sam and monitor people, this is not what we are doing in Montgomery County,” she said.
Zewdu Amare, who operates two 7-Eleven stores, one on Georgia Avenue and the other on University Boulevard, said he supports the plan to use the drones.
“Every day, we get shoplifting, armed robbery,” Amare said. “We call the police and by the time the police come, those guys are gone.”
Amare said over the last six months, robberies and shoplifting have cost him $40,000.
“I have to pay that out of my pocket,” Amare said. “How can I operate a business like that?”
Cokinos said with county council approval, the goal would be to have the pilot program operating by October or November. The money requested would buy two new drones for the county and cover the cost of staffing the operation.