Cops Get OK For New Drones

New Haven SWAT teams will have an easier time communicating with barricaded people in tense situations once new drones arrive this year, thanks to a vote taken at a City Hall meeting Tuesday night.

The Board of Alders voted unanimously at the meeting to sign off on a contract with BRINC, a Seattle-based company that manufactures them, to replace the police department’s two SWAT drones.

The vote approved an $82,524, five-year contract with BRINC that includes two new ​“LEMUR 2” drones plus a controller that can direct two drones at a time, training for officers, two device upgrades as they become available, and unlimited repairs and replacements.

So ​“if someone takes a baseball bat and whacks a drone out of the sky,” Lt. Ryan Pryzbylski, the department’s officer in charge of training, synopsized to the Independent, ​“we’re covered.”

That repair policy is important, Police Chief Karl Jacobson added, because ​“drones get damaged really easily.”

The police department already owns four other drones for patrolling purposes. The two SWAT drones are deployed largely in cases of emergency.

The department has flown the two drones about seven times since May, which was when the city first acquired them. Jacobson said his team has used the drones to communicate with people in hard-to-reach places, including barricaded shooters and, in at least one case, a person threatening to kill themself.

So far, Jacobson added, there’s been ​“nobody shot, nobody hurt, nobody injured” with a drone on scene.

The new drones — classified as LEMUR 2 rather than just LEMUR — are smaller than the originals. That means ​“they can fly in close areas such as into a house to talk to negotiate with the barricaded suspect,” Jacobson said. They’re also equipped with a louder audio system, which allows for clearer two-way communication under such circumstances.

“They can reach a location within minutes after receiving an emergency request and aerially assess the situation before human responders arrive. They are more cost-effective than the conventional method of deploying a manned helicopter. They can cover a large area easily and can be equipped with thermal sensors which is especially useful in search and rescue operations. Furthermore, they can be equipped with various attachments so payloads can be controlled by a single officer from a safe distance without risking the officer’s life, such as when engaging a perpetrator,” reads a letter from Jacobson explaining the drones’ purposes to the Board of Alders. ​“As the department works to fill vacancies, drones are an important tool in managing our personnel resources more efficiently.”

According to BRINC’s website, the LEMUR 2 has ​“two additional autonomy sensors, five times more computing power, superior antennas, and an advanced cooling system.”

Jacobson said he is unsure how long it will be before the new drones are seen up in the sky. ​“We need to sign the contracts and get them delivered and get trained up,” he said.