Wheat Ridge police deploy new drone team

WHEAT RIDGE, Colo. (KDVR) – Wheat Ridge Police are taking search and investigation to a new level with a new drone program.

A police team of eight drone pilots now regularly uses drones to combat crime indoors and outdoors in the community.

“We were able to look at serious car accidents from different perspectives, improve situational awareness and monitor surveillance when we are in the field,” said Sgt. John Bowman.

When there are accidents along Interstate 70 or when searching for missing people and suspects, Bowman said the drone team allows them to cover much more ground in areas officers wouldn’t normally be able to reach on foot.

“The drones are able to actually tell you the heat signatures and the approximate temperature. It will tell us the distance. We can put pins when we’re looking for something or looking for someone who ran,” Bowman said.

In addition to real-time views of the sky, the drone team is a tool the department uses to recreate crime scenes.

“We are able to use these drones to take a series of photos, incorporate them into mapping and recreate a crime scene,” Bowman said.

“We are able to put the whole story together,” Bowman said, adding, “You have A and B, and that helps us fill in C.” It gives us a much more complete picture of what the situation was like at the time it happened.”

The team began using the drones regularly in April. They try to have a pilot on every shift so that they can use the drones around the clock to solve crimes.