Two teenagers in Fitchburg, Wisconsin went on a rock-throwing spree from a bridge overlooking Highway 114 last month, causing thousands of dollars in damage to cars – and minor injuries to their drivers – passing below.  And local police seemed powerless to stop their escalating rampage.

Until they sent in a drone.

The drone, flying at night and using its infrared thermal imaging cameras, was able to spot the two boys atop the overpass and quietly signaled waiting officers to close in.  One boy was arrested on the scene while the other fled and tried to hide nearby.  Within minutes, he, too, was found – and quickly apprehended.

Both boys were charged with reckless endangerment and other felony crimes and are being held in juvenile detention, awaiting trial, for the next 90 days.  Local residents are relieved that the boys’ week-long attacks have finally ended; while several drivers were hospitalized, none were killed or severely injured.

Police drones are widely used by law enforcement in the Badger State – in fact, Wisconsin has the third highest number of police agencies deploying UAVs, according to statistics compiled by the Center for the Study of the Drone at New York’s Bard College.  While police departments in larger Wisconsin cities have come to acquire large multi-purpose UAV fleets, with a dozen or more trained officers standing by to pilot them, even small rural towns like Fitchburg are finding even a single drone useful, especially when searching for lost or missing persons or fleeing criminal suspects.

In fact, just a day before the rock-throwing spree began, police in Dane County (which encompasses Fitchburg) deployed their own drone to apprehend another wanted man who had evaded their officers at night. Dane County has seven Sheriff’s deputies assigned to its own UAV team.  The team often lends its drones to area police departments for specific tactical missions, as was the case in Fitchburg when the town’s own police were unable to capture the rock-throwers.

The police department in Madison, Wisconsin, the state’s capital, which began its own drone program – reportedly the state’s first – back in 2017, has also supported Fitchburg police on several occasions.  For example, last year, Fitchburg police requested MPD drone support to find and apprehend a man who had threatened a taxi driver and fled to a wooded area. Once again, thermal imaging technology proved critical in locating the man, based on his seat signature alone.  An MPD K-9 team assisted Fiutchburg police to confront the suspect, who surrendered without further incident.

As these examples attest, drones provide police in Wisconsin and elsewhere with several tactical advantages.  One, of course, is the ability to conduct nocturnal operations that make it possible to apprehend fleeing suspects or missing persons more quickly.  Without this capability, many suspects are able to escape custody and to go on threatening other local communities, sometimes committing even more serious crimes on the run.  In the case of missing persons – often  hikers who got injured or lost in the wilderness or seniors and children who wandered off from their homes – drones can ensure a speedy rescue that limits the exposure of victims to the elements, which can easily lead to hypothermia or death.

While search-and-rescue ro search-and-capture operations remain a preeminent mission for police drones, they are just one of several, in fact.  Larger departments – like the MPD or Zane County’s – also use police drones for routine crime and accident scene analysis. Equipped with high-powered zoom cameras and special 3D photogrammetry capabilities, aerial drones can collect detailed images from a crime or accident scene from a variety of in a manner of minutes, replacing the costly and time-consuming efforts of their field investigators.  The drone also makes it possible for officers to minimize traffic closures and to identify and  charge suspects and close their cases faster.

Drones can also respond to 911 calls – in some cases, automatically – which allows police departments to gather “situational intelligence” of a possible crime-in-progress even before their officers arrive on the scene.  The drone can size up the tactical situation and allow the department to adjust its manpower and firepower needs accordingly.  The police department in Linn, a tiny town of just 2,200 residents, acquired 3 DJI drones back in 2020.  With drones, the department has reduced its operational manpower requirements by 50%, which has helped offset cutbacks in its police budget and headcount.

Some larger Wisconsin PD’s have also reduced and in some cases eliminated their aging helicopter fleet and substituted drones, which are far cheaper to operate and maintain and reduce the department’s carbon footprint, a key selling point in their budget submissions to local communities and town councils.

There was a time when police drones in Wisconsin were highly controversial.  Back in 2017, when Madison first considered purchasing a small fleet of UAVs, citizen concerns about privacy violations were paramount.  And when riots broke out after the death of George Floyd, police surveillance of civic protests in Kenosha and other Wisconsin cities led to even greater concerns about civil rights abuses.

But over time drones have proven themselves in the eyes of most Wisconsin residents.  Criminal pursuit operations like those conducted recently in Fitchburg have highlighted the distinct crime-fighting edge that properly deployed UAVs can provide to local police departments.  And when citizens feel safer, they see drones as their friends.

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