By The JOLT Staff
New drone technology employed by the Thurston County Sheriff's Office helped locate and arrest a wanted man after a complaint about squatters at a residence near Steamboat Island Road.
Sheriff's office deputies responded to the complaint on Saturday, July 18.
One of the individuals inside of the residence was identified as a man with an active warrant out of Yelm for running afoul of a domestic violence order.
"Deputies made contact at the property and the suspect fled into the residence. A small drone was utilized to clear the residence before deputies and K-9 Mac made entry and determined the suspect fled out the back door," said Sheriff Derek Sanders in a social media post on Saturday.
"One of our larger newer drones ... was deployed and K-9 Mac began tracking. K-9 announcements were made, at which point the suspect immediately surrendered and came out from his hiding spot in the bushes."
The man, whose name was not released, was taken into custody without any force for his warrant, as well as a new count of violating a no contact order. He was then hauled off to Thurston County Correcitons Facility by a deputy cadet.
"Great job by all of our deputies and K-9 Mac in coordinating the safe capture of this individual. It was also cool to watch our new drone technology get deployed, as this upgraded drone can now give specific voice commands from the sky," Sanders said.
"During this incident, the drone gave automated surrender orders that were clearly heard at the ground level and the suspect responded to. The new drone is also equipped with a spotlight, infrared optics, and can now be flown in poor weather conditions such as heavy rain."
gordixie
Was this a Flock drone by chance? It’s all great while we’re targeting DV perpetrators and violent criminals, but the slippery slope of surveillance technology, in both public and private use, is an inherent invasion of privacy that makes Orwell’s Big Brother blush. To make matters worse, it’s embraced with open arms at scale, from the Sheriff’s Office, to Walmart parking lot cameras, to Ring doorbell cameras in just about every neighborhood.
Tuesday, July 21 Report this
ddttwo2
Gordixie is that all you're worried about? being a flock camera drone? How about the safety of the people in the neighborhood getting the squatter out of that house and getting this felon back to jail where he belongs I think that's much more important.
Wednesday, July 22 Report this
LANGSTROTH
The flock camera debate roars on. These are valuable technologies for law enforcement and who are strictly authorized to use them. We, of course must make them accountable and work to prevent unauthorized use and blatant disregard of personal privacy.
Wednesday, July 22 Report this
gordixie
We can provide public safety and address issues of violent crimes without surveillance technology invading everyone’s privacy.
If you’re wondering about the caliber of the fine folks at Flock, and the supposed accountability and integrity of the firm and its users, it might be worth noting that Flock employees have been caught “watching live feeds of … child’s gymnastics class, not for security, but to impress potential customers“. Nice one. Let’s show off our surveillance abilities by spying on kids in gym class. Sounds like something out of Epstein Island.
https://www.gadgetreview.com/flock-safety-employees-watched-kids-gymnastics-room-to-pitch-surveillance-tech
And as far as law enforcement, it sure has been a useful technology for the over dozen cases of arrests for abusing this technology to stalk people, especially romantic partners. Ironic that the same tech that caught this DV perpetrator has been repeatedly abused BY LAW ENFORCEMENT for the same purposes of relational control and abuse as our ‘felon who belongs in jail’
https://www.yahoo.com/news/us/articles/stalker-cams-inside-widespread-abuse-171100932.html
Thursday, July 23 Report this