April SPT

Southern Pines Today April Edition Page 11
Page 12 April Edition Carthage Gazette
Sheriff Neil Godfrey
Moore County Sheriff’s Offi ce has
purchased an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle
(UAV) equipped with an eye-in-thesky
camera for surveillance in a variety
of law enforcement operations.
According to Sheriff Godfrey, “The
technological advancement is in concert
with the Sheriff’s Offi ce mission
by improving the ability to effi ciently
and effectively enforce the law, protect
lives and save valuable resources
in time, personnel and money.
“We are not going to be doing random
surveillance of people,” Sheriff Godfrey
said. “It will be a mission-specifi
c tool to be brought for specific
incidents.” Those uses include:
search and rescue operations, crime
scene photography, documenting
natural or man-made disasters, active
shooter incidents, searching
for a suspect, Special Response
Team call-outs, high-risk search
warrants, hostage negotiations,
drug interdiction, crowd monitoring
and explosive-device inspection.
The
Sheriff’s
“One of the main uses for the UAV
will be for high-risk situations such as
someone barricaded in a home. The
UAV will allow us to get a bird’s-eye
view and see more of what’s going
on without having to put any offi cers
in danger. The capability will also increase
public safety for search and
rescue operations. We will no longer
have to lose valuable time waiting
on helicopters to located missing
personnel.” Sheriff Godfrey said.
Two deputies are currently being
trained to fl y and operate the UAV.
Moore County Sheriff’s Offi ce recently
received a DJI Matrice 210
Unmanned Aerial Vehicle. The DJI
Matrice 210 is the “fi rst-ever” dual-camera
UAV for simultaneous thermal
and standard color imagery. It
has an upward-facing gimbal mount,
weather resistant design, dual battery
bays, thermal imaging and an
extensive zoom. The new Moore
County Sheriff’s Offi ce UAV with its
capabilities makes it ideal for law
enforcement search and rescue in locations
that are diffi cult to approach.
Corner
The Matrice 210 can fl y for up to 35
minutes and features an operation
range of 4.4 miles. It has two controllers,
one for the pilot and one for
the observer to control the cameras.
Local Missing Child
Success Story
On Thursday March 1, at approximately
10:30 pm, Moore County
Sheriff’s deputies were dispatched
to a residence off of Flowers Road in
Jackson Springs, North Carolina reference
a missing 11 year old female.
Sheriff’s Deputies responded to
the home and began their search.
Moore County Sheriff’s Offi ce Drone
Pilot, Lieutenant Tim Davis, arrived
at the residence with the Matrice
210 Drone and immediately
launched it to search for the child.
Within fi fteen minutes, a heat signature
was observed in the wooded
area approximately 100 yards from
the residence across the highway.
Lieutenant Davis was able to use
his radio to direct Deputies Sergeant
Cameron and Deputies Oaks
and Griffi n to that location. Deputies
were able to locate the small
sleeping child tucked away under
some thick tree limbs and brush.
“This is a perfect example of why
we invested in this drone capability”
said Sheriff Neil Godfrey. “The
Moore County Sheriff’s Offi ce is doing
everything we can to ensure that
we are using technology to benefi t
the safety of our citizens as well as
our deputies. Without the drone,
we would have had to employ additional
resources that historically
would have included a helicopter.
As a parent, I am happy for the
child and the family that last
night’s fl ight was a success and
as the Sheriff, I am proud of Lieutenant
Davis and our deputies.”
Technology and law enforcement
have always been uneasy friends.
As a society, we generally want our
cops to have all of the tools they
need to keep the bad guys at bay.
We just want them to use those tools
responsibly and without sticking
their beaks into ordinary, generally
law-abiding citizens’ everyday life.
Whether it’s using infrared heat sensors
to detect marijuana grow houses,
global positioning system(GPS)
tracking devices to tail suspects or
breathalysers to calculate how much
a driver has had to drink, advances
in technology usually mean new
ways to make cops more effective.
There are currently 347 U.S. agencies
using drones as part of their
of their approach in law enforcement.
Some of these account for a
staggering 518 percent increase in
drone use in the past 24 months.
The fact is, sending in a drone to investigate
a scenario is far safer for
law enforcement, and can provide far
more informative data, faster, than
sending in a squad of police offi cers.
We are a customer-service-oriented
organization and this UAV
is another tool to help us to better
accomplish our mission.”
By: Rick Levinger