Everett City Hall building (2024).
EVERETT — The Everett Police Department is launching its Drone as a First Responder pilot program.
“A trained and certified drone pilot deploys a drone from a dock located on a rooftop of a city-owned building,” Police Department spokesperson Officer Natalie Given said. The drone will give a “live video feed to responding officers,” Given added, allowing assessments before coming to or at the scene.
That speed will allow police officers to obtain information about a situation quicker. This information could help “with a multitude of scenarios, spanning from search and rescue life-saving concerns to criminal apprehension,” Given said.
The Everett Police Department will be the second police program of its kind in the state, Given said. Everett will be using Flock Safety’s technology.
The drones will have two cameras. A zoom camera and a thermal camera alongside a night vision. These drones can cover “38 square miles, fly at 53 miles per hour, and average a response time of 86-90 seconds,” Given said.
According to an Everett Police Department Marine Operations Unit 2024 Small Unmanned Aircraft Systems report, these drones will “provide rapid situational and threat assessment,” which will produce quicker and prepared reactions. Also, the drones distribute resources effectively, which eliminates the need for extra officer involvement and dependence on higher-costing flying devices.
Recently, they partnered with Flock Safety. Flock Safety helped implement Everett’s license plate reader (LPR) program last year. According to Everett’s Flock Safety System webpage, this consisted of 71 license plate readers and three pan-tilt-zoom cameras in Everett.
That program is producing great results. With the help of the LPR program, “four homicide suspects were located,” Given mentioned. Furthermore, automobile theft was down 68% last month.
Flock wanted to further their partnership with Everett with a drone and dock. All free for the first year. The police department explained that they wanted a complete scope of the city. This required another drone and dock. Flock offered the second drone “at a significantly discount rate,” Given said.
Redmond is using something similar as well. The Redmond Police Department started using them in April 2024. They are piloted by officers licensed by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). The officers fly the drones “to calls along with patrol officers,” Redmond’s drone program webpage stated.
The city of Everett has been engaging with residents about these drones. They had two meetings to inform the residents about the drones. In the following months, they will continue to reach out to residents to educate them about these drones.
Everett Police will revise its UAS policy and make it available to the public. Their policy will maintain a regard “for civil rights; limitations and purpose of use; documentation of operations; data minimization and retention; adherence to FAA regulations; policy management; and police accountability,” Given said by email.
Since this is a trial run, the key performance indicators are “response time, the number of calls for service the drone can respond to without using additional police resources, and the number of suspects or suspect vehicles located,” Given said.
