EL CAJON, Calif. — El Cajon Police are now using drones essentially like officers, as a high-tech tool to crack down on retail theft.
El Cajon Police say that one of the key advantages in using drones is that while it may take minutes for an officer to get to the scene of a crime, police can dispatch a drone in a matter of seconds, saving critical time and helping to catch criminals who may otherwise have gotten away.
"We're essentially using them just like police officers," said El Cajon Police Chief Mike Moulton.
While El Cajon Police have used drones for years, only recently they launched their new "Drone as First Responder" program, helping tackle the rising problem of retail theft, according to Chief Moulton.
"We're catching people who are victimizing our community, so i look at it as a crime fighting tool," he told CBS 8.
Case in point: a suspect who allegedly stole hundreds of dollars worth of merchandise from a local Target and ran away.
"That case likely would not have been solved," Moulton added. "That person probably would have gotten away without the drone."
Once they got the call, officers from the ECPD's 'Drone Unit' immediately dispatched a drone to the area, which quickly located the suspect from its aerial perch, remotely feeding video back to the ground.
"Because we had a drone up, we were able to find that person, we were able to find the suspect track him until there was a police officer in the field who was clear, and then that's how we caught that individual," Moulton said.
Drones are also being used as a crime-fighting tool in other parts of the county, including Chula Vista, the City of San Diego and the Sheriff's Department.
This powerful technology has also come under fierce criticism by privacy advocates.
"I am a big advocate of personal privacy," Chief Moulton said, adding that much like the city's automated license plate reader program, drones are an effective crime-fighting tool.
"From my perspective, as a member of society, not as a police officer, not as a police chief, we are using these technologies for good, we're using these technologies to enhance public safety," he said.
Moulton calls these drones a "force multiplier" that promises to play an even larger role in tackling crime moving forward.
"In the future, there will be a future where a single person can launch multiple drones," he added, helping police deploy the limited number of officers they have even more strategically, "freeing them up for high-priority calls. I think that is the way it's really going to change law enforcement going into the future."
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