The Moore County Sheriff’s Department has added a new drone to its air force. The DJI Matrice 210 Unmanned Aerial Vehicle is equipped with dual-camera for simultaneous thermal and standard color imagery.
Effective December 1st, a North Carolina law has now loosened restrictions on the use of drones in emergency management situations. The law permits emergency management agencies to use drones for all activities related to emergency management and removes the restriction on the use of special imaging technology. This allows law enforcement agencies to use drones for search and rescue operations.
“The Moore County Sheriff’s Office is doing everything we can to ensure that we are using technology to benefit the safety of our citizens as well as our deputies. We are not going to be doing random surveillance of people,” Sheriff Godfrey said. “It will be a mission-specific tool to be employed for special incidents. The primary use remains search and rescue operations but may be employed in other capacities such as searching for a suspect, crime scene photography and documenting natural or man-made disasters. We are a customer-service-oriented organization and this UAV is another tool to help us to better accomplish our mission.”
The new drone makes it ideal for law enforcement’s search and rescue missions in locations that are difficult to approach. The Matrice 210 can fly up to 35 minutes and can fly within a range of 4.4 miles. The drone is a quadcopter with four rotors and has a camera system that will provide officers a real-time video image of what is happening below and around it.
The technological advancement is in concert with the Sheriff’s Office mission of “improving the ability to efficiently and effectively enforce the law, protect lives and save valuable resources in time, personnel and money.”
photo courtesy of Moore County Sheriff’s Office
