ECSO gets SKY high donation

Erath County Sheriff’s Office’s newest asset is able to travel at 42 miles per hour and see from the sky.

That’s because an estimated $5,000 in equipment, including a drone or unmanned aerial vehicle, was donated to the department on Jan.20 through the National Public Safety Drone Donation Program (NPSDDP) and partner agencies.

“We’re extremely happy and excited about the donation,” said Erath County Sheriff Matt Coates. “We already used [the drone] twice within the first week of them donating it. It was extremely helpful in both situations.”

The donation was secured through the Life in the Arena Program represented by Eddy Weiss of the National Health and Public Safety History Museum in Dublin.

Weiss reported that the foundation has donated equipment like ballistic vests and cameras to agencies around the country, and he’s wanted to help out the local departments since he and his family moved to Dublin at the end of 2019.

“It seems natural for local people to have what we have the ability of bringing,” he said. “It felt like this was a cool way to make a statement, of showing we support our first responders.”

The donation was realized thanks to NPSDDP and its founder, Marc Langley, who is also CEO of Airborne Works.

The donation also included spot lighting from FoxFury Lighting Solutions, which will allow the drone to perform operations at night and Loc8 image scanning software, which allows agencies to filter out specific colors and identifies in images and video captured by the drone during search and rescue operations.

Langley reported this was the 24th drone donation for the program, having previously donated devices to departments from Massachusetts to Alaska.

Antonio Cugini of FoxFury also pointed out that these donations are the first drones to departments that haven’t been able to afford one, not the “ninth or 10th” to large agencies who already have devices. ECSO, like any other recipient, had to apply and submit a video highlighting the departments need to nps-ddp.org.

“The lives of the people in small communities just as important as [people in] LA,” Langley said.

The Loc8 donation was facilitated through Gene Robinson, who started flying drones in 2005, performed the first televised drone search on CourtTV and has aided with operations in 31 states and six countries.

Robinson has found the work rewarding as he helped people find family members and even assisted in breaking up a human trafficking ring in Tijuana. Four years ago, he started training agencies on drone operations.

“Gene put it well earlier today,” said Langley. “It’s a force multiplier. When you have a drone, you have eyes in the sky rather than just boots on the ground. You have just added like four or five people to your team.”

Weiss said it was rewarding to listen to ECSO officers discuss the equipment during the donation. “It wasn’t, Oh, we have new toys,’” he said “It was, Oh, this could save our lives. This could save other lives.’ That sheriff’s office was just expanded.”

The donors said drones aid in protecting responders, operating around wildland fires and other areas that might be unsafe for humans, provide a speedier response and offer an unbiased perspective (such as in incidents with crowds where an aerial view might be more informative).

Langley said one of the most telling experiences he’s witnessed with drones’ helpfulness came when a drone was dispatched to a report of someone with a gun at a picnic table.

The drone used its optical zoom to observe the subject from a safe distance.

“The guy picked up his gun and lit a cigarette with it,” Langley reported. “It was a cigarette lighter.”

Langley also said the benefit of drones is that they are expendable, with devices able to go into dangerous situations and put less risks on responders.

“If a drone can save someone from falling in a roof or spare someone from getting shot around a corner, it’s worth it,” Langley said.

Museum hosts experts

The donors also shared their expertise in special events held at the National Health and Public Safety History Museum, which further highlighted the benefits of drones, the NPSDDP and Loc8 software.

In presentations held in the Knights theater above the museum, Langley highlighted the need for drones in the field showing off how two minutes of drone footage can be uploaded and used to provide 3D models that can be examined on computers afterwards for investigation. He also reinforced the purpose of the NPSDDP in helping departments without much extra revenue. He said this was particularly true in fire departments, as the U.S. Fire Administration registry reported that 70.4% of fire departments are 100% volunteer and 15.9% of departments are mostly volunteer.

After Langley spoke, Robinson showed off the benefits of Loc8 by searching for a shade of blue in 82 aerial photographs. The results were highlighted and circled where the color could be seen. As he filtered the color down, he narrowed the results to a small spot near a tree line in a pasture and provided a photo on the ground to show that the small spot was a blue baseball cap on someone’s head. Since the images were tagged with GPS and Google Earth data, Robinson reported it would be easy and quick to send responders to points of interest.

On Thursday, Langley led short presentations in the museum’s disaster and response exhibit while Antonio Cugini was on hand to show how new technologies were being used to fight COVID and other infectious threats.

Mario Cugini, the inventor of the lighting being used on the donated drone was on-hand in the forensic exhibit to show how evidence is detected using the light spectrum.

On Thursday evening, the Knight Theater hosted Clayton Regan. Regan is currently the Professional Standards Commander for the Midlothian, Texas Police Department and is the Training Director for the North Texas Public Safety Unmanned Response Team (PSURT). This program will give insight into live streaming from the air, new mapping technologies, using drones in the post-disaster environment as well as how drones are utilized in law enforcement.

Also on hand was Barry Moore, a former Major Case Detective with Mansfield, Texas PD and also ran the UAS Division. Moore is one of the founders of the North Texas PSURT and a consultant with All Mobile Vision, the public safety specialist for FireCam. He presented a view into SkyeBrowse videogrammetry to those attending.

Drone demonstrations were held following each night’s events.

Weiss reported that these free special events are only the first planned for the benefit of first responders and the public. The next scheduled presentation will be 6:30 p.m. on Feb. 12.

In this presentation, trainer Eddy Weiss looks at the history of infectious disease in the United States, the methods used in the past and the importance of protocols in today’s changing world of threats. This laid-back program takes a look at recent lessons learned, why we should not forget the lessons of the 1918 Pandemic and how we can apply simple measures in the workplace and at home to prevent what could be the catastrophic end of not only a career but a life.

Also covered in this program is the lack of attention paid to drug contamination during the course of our law enforcement workdays. Utilizing his experience as a certified forensics specialist, Weiss will create a hands-on experience using forensic lights during the program while learning to apply simple measures in the workplace and at home to prevent catastrophe.