By Patrick Adrian
Staff Writer
NEWPORT — The use of drone technology may soon be added to Sullivan County’s toolbox to assist local police, fire, and rescue operations, thanks in part to an anonymous donation of $10,000 to help fund the county project, according to officials from the Sullivan County sheriff’s office.
Chief Deputy Jeremy Wilson, who is spearheading a project to acquire county-owned drones to assist in local emergency responses, said the recent donation puts the sheriff’s office within reach of the funding needed to launch a program with two drones, one for use in the field and a second for training purposes.
“Whoever the anonymous donor was, we would like to thank them for their generous donation,” Wilson told The Eagle Times on Wednesday. “We assure them it will be used well.”
In November, the sheriff’s office learned they received a $10,000 grant from an anonymous donor through the Common Sense Fund, a program run by the New Hampshire Charitable Foundation, to support the purchase of safety equipment.
Sullivan County Sheriff John Simonds, in a meeting with the County Commissioners on Monday, said the letter initially caught him by surprise as his department had not applied for a grant of that size.
“We suspect [the donor] had seen our requests to apply for grants for the drone project,” Sullivan told the commissioners.
The sheriff’s office also has a smaller grant of $900 for the project. Simons said his department intends to fully fund the program through grants and donations rather than put a burden on county taxpayers.
Wilson said the unexpected anonymous donation suddenly put the program back on track, after the pandemic and correlating economic uncertainty across the region paused the sheriff’s office local fundraising campaign.
Drones are quickly becoming a staple technology within law enforcement and emergency response agencies, according to Wilson, as they enable personnel to visually study areas that are difficult to safely access, such as ice-covered bodies of water or areas that are remote, obstructed or hazardous.
Cheshire County officers recently used drones to find the body of a missing person who had fallen through ice, for example. And investigators used droves to detect water cooling towers during their investigation of a severe outbreak of legionnaire’s disease in Hampton in 2018.
Simonds also noted on Monday that a drone can prove beneficial in dangerous police-involved situations, such as the Claremont standoff in 2019, when local and state officers responded to an active shooter secured inside a house on Hanover Street. Authorities could use a drone’s video camera in such situations to capture footage through a window to see occupants, their positions, or contents inside.
“Granted the drone would have been shot out of the sky but at least we would have been able to see into the building,” Simons said.
Drones could also aid fire departments in their responses to brush fire to track the fire spread or to police searches for missing persons, such as older individuals suffering from Alzheimer’s disease or lost or injured hikers, Wilson said.
To assuage any public concerns about these drones being misused by officers, Simonds and Wilson said there are many federal regulations and protocols that protect against drone abuse.
First, officers must acquire a drone-pilot’s license from the Federal Aviation Authority (FAA) to operate a drone. Secondly, a department must obtain FAA approval and submit a flight plan when using a drone in an official capacity, to fly a drone at night or at a height of 400 feet or greater.
“It is not a toy nor will it be used as one,” Simonds told the commissioners. “It will be strictly monitored and only used when there is a request.”
These requests would come from local agencies such as municipal police or fire departments.
Wilson explained the program intends to provide the communities in Sullivan County with a valuable resource that many of those communities would be unable to afford independently.
Police agencies would still need to obtain a search warrant if using in a criminal matter though not in emergency cases like a missing person search or a brush fire, Wilson said.
The prices for drones have fluctuated in recent years, but Wilson estimates a cost between $16,000 to $20,000 to get an initial program into operation, which includes enough to purchase a field drone, a training drone and training and licensing for up to four county officers.
The cost of drone programs vary based on the sophistication of the drone technology, explained Wilson. Drones designed for police or emergency operations typically include cameras with zoom capability, searchlights, speakers or thermal imaging or sensory. More advanced drones, in addition to upgrades in basic features, can include options like real-time kinematic (RTK) technology, which works in coordination with global positioning system (GPS) maps or the ability to carry items such as a drop-phone.
While Wilson would ideally like to have options like RTK, the department’s goal is to get an initial program off the ground with the best cameras available, even if that means buying a more advanced drone for field use but a less expensive one for training. The department hopes that a successful program could attract future donations or grants to develop the program further.
Wilson also noted that federal grants could be a future source. The sheriff’s office decided against pursuing federal assistance now because some federal programs will not award multiple grants to the same agency and purpose. Additionally as drone technology continues to become more prevalent nationwide in emergency services, the federal grants for drone programs may increase in the future.
What the county needs now in funds would only be “a drop in the bucket” to what the federal government might award later, Wilson said.
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