Introduction
UK Police Forces
Drone Models
From Wikipedia
In the News
Drone Research
Further Help and Safety
Version Page History - version 001 was posted 13 March 17 (3.45pm uk). When page version 002 is made, I will let people know, maybe highlighting in yellow all the new additions.
Introduction - This page is written for the public, the police and the skilled set of people who make the drones.
In my view, drones are much more than flying about taking pictures and recording videos. If we understand the technology and it’s potential, we can start to shape the use of drones as used by Emergency Services.
Of course I’m not alone in this - there’s a mass of information available, so let’s get started splitting it up into bite sized chunks. And separate the fact from the fiction, the myth from the reality.
2007 image yet top of google image results
One Simple Image - As an example, on googling drone police, we see as one of the first this images. We can tell it’s a UK Police Officer in yellow high visibility jacket. I think most people would accept that image as a ‘current state of UK Police Drones’ - but is it? No.
The image can be traced back to 21 May 2007 and seen in this BBC article with annotations where Merseyside Police are mentioned. That’s ten years ago and in my view many people will not or cannot google search effectively enough to persist in find the truth (right click image, select ‘search google for this image’ and a few clicks later select View Page.. that’s where I found the BBC post).
Drone, UAV, UAS - I’ll use the term drone which seems much more widely used than UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle) or UAS (unmanned aerial system). See Google Trends of Google Ngram to compare.
Some UK Police Forces have published their own stories, where some officers have tweeted. I’ll do my best to collate them. Twitter Moments are a useful tool to group together tweets, images and videos. For example: UK Police Fire Drone Resources and Essex Police Drone Resources.
For the discussion piece, go visit - The Bobby on the Beat versus The Drone.
If you’ve just stepped foot on British soil for the first time, or googled it from afar - what would you like to know about this topic, maybe something like..
In terms of UK Police and Fire, who are the main players?
What drone tech are they sporting? And how do we know?
In other words, have the police and fire told us themselves?
Have the news reported it or was some other way - word of mouth even?
National Police Chiefs Council - On visiting the site npcc.police.uk, there were 91 results for keyword ‘drone’, 94 for ‘drones’ (warning! Some results in this google search are NOT from npcc.police.uk site although appear to be so - be careful what you click on ie drones for sale/auctions).
Top of the search results, this 28 page document called, ‘Guidance to Officers on Drones’ It’s labelled as 2015 and not protectively marked (last edit Jan 2916). It’s pretty useful in how the NPCC will publish papers like this - my guess not many people read them at all.
If you do get curious, Section 4. Officer Actions is worth a read. The link to Flying Drones from the CAA is invaluable. On page 25, there are eleven FAQs, again worth a read. Note, I have no idea if this guidance is still used - all I do know, it was on the internet, publicly at the NPCC site.
UK Police Forces (from police.uk/forces). At this stage, I will google ‘uk police drone’ as general search. After that, I usually search anytime in the last year.
Another variant I will use, searching each police force site ie site:https://sussex.police.uk drone returns 27 results, while site:essex.police.uk drone gives 8 results. As there are 48 force websites, I cannot tell if 27 or 8 is a high or low number of hits for ‘drone’.
Thinking of a force website’s expectations, we may see a page dedicated to: Dogs, Mounted, Air, ANPR, Marine, Taser etc so my guess Drone maybe a breakout area.
When the information starts to come if from my searches, I need to get a method to record each item just once (on this page). This is open to suggestion. In other swords, I do not want to add a link to a news article if I cannot verify or trust that news site.
I would much rather a police force publish something directly from themselves and I record that in the section below. And following if a newspaper or TV Station say something, then that appears in the News section.
Of course, the planet is awash at the moment with all this fake news. Last thing we need, to get this page muddied with ambiguity. For your information, I (as mike downes) is the sole author. If it’s wrong then all down to me. So what do we have so far then ..
England (39 forces) -
Avon and Somerset Constabulary
Bedfordshire Police
Cambridgeshire Constabulary
Cheshire Constabulary
City of London Police
Cleveland Police
Cumbria Constabulary
Cumbria police drones flying high after being used 100 times in the last year newsandstar, 11 Nov 16 .. 4 drones, based Carlisle, Workington, Kendal and its county headquarters, near Penrith.. 14 officers trained.. £2,300 each [ model DJI Inspire 1 ]
Heliguy interviews Cumbria Police, 3 Aug 16 - with Chief Inspector Matthew Kennerley,
Derbyshire Constabulary
Devon & Cornwall Police - on twitter as @DC_PoliceDrones (3,688 followers as 12 Mar 17).
Dorset Police
Durham Constabulary
Essex Police - on twitter as @epolicedrone (1,396 followers as 12 Mar 17).
Gloucestershire Constabulary
Greater Manchester Police
Hampshire Constabulary
Hertfordshire Constabulary
Humberside Police
Kent Police
Lancashire Constabulary
Leicestershire Police
Lincolnshire Police
Merseyside Police
http://www.personal-drones.net/the-rise-and-fall-of-uk-mereyside-police-drone/ 3 Nov 13
Metropolitan Police Service
Norfolk Constabulary
North Yorkshire Police
http://www.hulldailymail.co.uk/humberside-police-using-drones-to-film-major-crimes/story-29849804-detail/story.html
Northamptonshire Police
Northumbria Police
Nottinghamshire Police
South Yorkshire Police
Staffordshire Police
Suffolk Constabulary
Surrey Police - have an excellent webpage divided into seven readable sections detailing the Aeryon Skyranger quadcopter model which can carry daylight/thermal and HD Cameras. Drones can be used for missing persons search, assistance in RTC, major crime, industrial accident, event planning and situational awareness.
On 8 April 2016, details were published on how Sussex/Surrey Police have acquired four new Aeryon Skyranger (making five in total). Here’s the the Aeryon Skyranger features webpage -- all information is general to Aeryon, NOT Surrey Police (as I have no idea what model they are using).
Sussex Police
Thames Valley Police
Warwickshire Police
Police to use drones to aid criminal investigations, telegraph 5 Jan 16
West Mercia Police
West Midlands Police
West Yorkshire Police
Wiltshire Police
Northern Ireland
Police Service of Northern Ireland
Scotland
Police Scotland
Wales
Dyfed-Powys Police
Gwent Police
North Wales Police
South Wales Police
National special police forces
British Transport Police
Civil Nuclear Constabulary
Ministry of Defence Police
General
Drone Models
https://www.aeryon.com/aeryon-skyranger/features
http://www.dji.com/inspire-1
http://www.dji.com/products/drones#consumer-nav
https://www.yuneec.com/en_US/products/typhoon/h/overview.html
https://www.heliguy.com ref planet earth photo
http://cvp.com/index.php?t=product/freefly_alta example high end drone
From Wikipedia - all links and copy/paste made 12 March 17 ..
wikipedia / Unmanned aerial vehicle, Law Enforcement / Civil
“In 2014, it was reported that five English police forces had obtained or operated UAVs for observation.[167] Merseyside police caught a car thief with a UAV in 2010, but the UAV was lost during a subsequent training exercise<span style='background-color: white; color: #0b0080