Gwinnett County police debut drone response program

Gwinnett County Police have debuted another tool to help decrease response times to calls for service and it's drones. The new program debuted this week and has already been used to respond to several calls. Fox 5's Ray Urana reports on how and when officers will deploy the new technology. When Gwinnett County Police officers respond to a call for service, they can usually be heard and seen running lights and sirens on their way. But with a new program, the first responder that responds to that scene may be a drone. For takeoff. This week, Gwinnett County Police have launched a new drone first responder program at its north and central precincts. The locations for the drones were chosen because of the activity in those areas and calls for service in those areas as well as, you know, the major locations we have such as the malls. Police say the two drones cost $272,000, have a three mile radius and a flight time between 30 to 40 minutes. When deployed, these drones will often arrive to scenes before officers, providing an aerial view of the scene and a better understanding of what's going on while officers are still en route. Officers say the drones will be launched for active calls for service such as burglaries and not for routine patrol. On Thursday, its first day in service, police say they were launched three times including to a suspicious activity call. The drone was able to get to that location within seconds and able to zoom in and actually see that the door was broken and but they were also able to see while they were there that there was nobody coming in and out of the property either. Officers say the program will supplement their long-standing aviation program and join other departments across the metro having drones respond to calls. Gwinnett County officers also addressed potential privacy concerns. This new technology doesn't prevent us or make us less obligated to follow the fourth amendment. We are not going to be viewing into people's private residences or anywhere in the curtilage that necessarily wouldn't need to be a search warrant. Police say these are the first two drones that they are rolling out as part of this program. They say they may add additional drones to their fleet in the near future. Reporting in Gwinnett County Ray Urana, Fox 5 News.