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Drone Helps Hunt Down Suspect in Car Theft and Robbery

posted by martyb on Monday July 06 2015, @01:36PM   Printer-friendly
from the up-in-the-air-about-this-one dept.

Phoenix666 writes:

A Wisconsin robbery and auto theft suspect was captured by police thanks to a borrowed drone on May 31, according to court papers filed yesterday in Middleton, Wisconsin. The Wisconsin State Journal reports that Marquis Phiffer, 21, stole a car and robbed a convenience store in Middleton, Wisconsin on May 31.

After allegedly stealing a car that had been left running outside a coffee shop and robbing the store at a BP gas station (he declared he had a gun, but the clerk never saw one), Phiffer was pursued by police. A chase that reached speeds of up to 70mph ended when Phiffer crashed into a parked car. He abandoned the car and ran into a marsh near Tiedemann's Pond, just a few blocks from Middleton's National Mustard Museum.

The Middleton Fire Department lent the police a rubber raft and a camera-equipped DJI Phantom quadrocopter drone used in search and rescue operations to locate Phiffer. He was hiding in the water, and when the police reached him "his shoes were floating away from him," along with a "large wad of cash," Wisconsin State Journal's Ed Trevelen reported. More cash and a hypodermic needle were found in his pocket.

Seems like the same thing as calling in a chopper, but a lot less expensive. Anyone know what the cost differential is?

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  • (Score: 1) by captnjohnny1618 on Monday July 06 2015, @03:27PM

    by captnjohnny1618 (5301) on Monday July 06 2015, @03:27PM (#205662)
    It doesn't make sense because it's a bonafide logical fallacy: https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/slippery-slope [yourlogicalfallacyis.com]

    That being said, I do think that we need to carefully consider how we adopt drones for use in law enforcement ( https://xkcd.com/1215/ [xkcd.com] ) ;-).

    Here's some food for thought thought: I live in Los Angeles, and at any given point there are 4-5 LAPD helicopters just flying around "keeping an eye on things." Always. They probably have more in the air on nights like July 4th, or other potential high crime times. As far as I know, they don't ever land while they're on duty, so their real purpose is just to be up there watching. They also fly lower than other helicopters, so they're very loud, very annoying (they're always flying over someone's home, even at 3 and 4 AM).

    Now, when I think of all of the costs associated with keeping these things in the air 24/7, how freaking loud they are, and effectively we already have what the OP is afraid of (and I think for a city this large, we realistically need some air support), a few $1000 drones start to look pretty good. Limit their numbers, limit the lowest altitude they're allowed to fly (to protect citizen privacy) and mandate a legal code of conduct, that if violated results in prosecution. If these things happened, I'd definitely be open to a trial run if it got some of the helicopters out of the air.

    If nothing else they're a lot quieter!