Nassau County announces $1M drone first responder program
GARDEN CITY, Long Island (WABC) -- Nassau County is stepping up its drone program to speed up emergency responses with a bird's eye view.
In many cases, officers can immediately dispatch the drone when an emergency 911 call comes in, and it can get to the scene before police arrive.
"We're advancing to better protect the people in Nassau County," said Nassau County Police Commissioner Patrick Ryder.
Police are taking to the skies with advanced technology to safeguard residents.
On Monday, a new $1 million drone first responder program was announced in Nassau County.
"These drones will be patrolling, and they will also be responding," said Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman.
The fleet of drones is housed in climate-controlled pods at permanent docking stations. They will be automatically launched from eight locations in the county.
The unmanned aerial vehicles are equipped with cameras, thermal imaging, and can travel up to 40 miles an hour.
To show how quickly these drones can respond to a scene, one was deployed from the Nassau County Police Training and Intelligence Center and was sent to Eisenhower Park. The trip took under a minute.
"That's about a five-to-seven-minute car ride, depending on when you're leaving here," Ryder said. "In 30 seconds, that drone can be over that area in Eisenhower Park, feeding back intel, critical intel, to the intelligence center and to the responding vehicle."
Once over the designated area, the drones send real-time information to the Nassau Police Intelligence Center, and directly to the patrol cars of the first responders.
Ryder says this will cut down on response time, which is critical.
"If I can slow down, if I can get information faster to my cops that are responding, they're going to have a better way to attack and handle that problem," he said.
The commissioner told Eyewitness News that the drones will not be patrolling your backyards but focus on areas of concern like large gatherings or areas where police are dispatched.
"He comes over and basically pushes the button, it rises up, and it goes to the geocode location that we've already sent to it," Ryder said.
"It costs a million dollars, but here's the good news: it's not going to cost the taxpayers a nickel," Blakeman said. "We are using our asset forfeiture funds to pay for that."
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