Grand Chute, located in northeastern Wisconsin, covers approximately 25.0 square miles. With a population of 23,831 as of 2020, the town is considered a suburb of the Appleton Metropolitan area. The responsibility of protecting and serving the people of Grand Chute falls to the Grand Chute Police Department (GCPD), headed by Chief Greg Peterson, with 29 sworn officers and about 13 civilian staff members. Including the GCPD, Wisconsin has 529 local and state law enforcement agencies. Last year, only 18 of these agencies utilized the latest in 21st-century police technology, drones.

The state is aggressively trying to change that. In the past year, an additional 38 public safety agencies in Wisconsin implemented drone programs, the GCPD being one of them. However, the drone program being introduced by the GCPD is unique compared to any others in Wisconsin. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) granted the GCPD a special waiver to begin Wisconsin’s first Drone as First Responder (DFR) program.

The majority of police departments that use drones in the United States must abide by the same strict safety rules that any commercial or recreational drone operator is responsible for. One of the primary rules set by the FAA is that a drone must remain within Visual Line of Sight (VLOS) of its operator at all times. For police officers, this means keeping a drone ready to go in a vehicle, arriving at a scene, unpacking the drone, and then launching it. But when a police officer is dealing with a possible emergency, every second counts, and though drones have proven to save critical minutes, this process can prove to be too long.

A DFR program uses a different approach to how police officers can deploy drones. The drone is housed in a specialized container that is centrally located. When an emergency call comes in, a dispatcher can quickly determine if a drone would benefit the situation. If it is deemed a good call to use the drone, the dispatcher enters GPS coordinates into a secure program, the drone receives this information, and is remotely and rapidly launched. The drone then arrives on the scene, flying Beyond Visual Line Of Sight (BVLOS), before police officers have had the chance to get there, providing faster critical data for informed decision-making.

The DFR program that GCPD has purchased comes from Paladin Drones. Based out of Houston, Texas, Paladin was founded in 2018 by Divyaditya Shrivastava after witnessing a close friend lose their home in a fire. Shrivastava was determined to find a way to better prepare public safety agencies to respond in emergencies by developing a one-stop drone solution that includes all the necessary hardware, software, data management, guidance, and FAA waivers needed for safe remote drone deployment.

Currently, the GCPD is still in the trial phase of the DFR program with one Paladin Knighthawk system. But as Captain David Maas pointed out, he and his fellow officers are already greatly benefiting from the program. “Not only can we respond quicker, we can provide that information back to the officers to aid in their response, but it also gives the officers more information to act upon when on a call,” Captain Maas said. “This helps with resource utilization and management. We can use the drone to identify what needs an officer to respond, how many officers might be required based upon what we see through the drone feed.”

Lieutenant Mike Lichtensteiger gave a perfect example of how the drone program is helping the GCPD better manage its resources. He said that after receiving a call about a suspicious person in a vehicle, the dispatch officer chose to deploy the drone. The drone was at the site of the vehicle within a matter of minutes, providing instant situational awareness. “Turns out that person was doing nothing wrong,” Lieutenant Lichtensteiger said. “It prevented an officer’s response, so officers didn’t even respond to that call.”

The GCPD’s adoption of a DFR program marks a significant shift in how emergency response can be carried out in Wisconsin. As the first agency in the state to receive FAA authorization for this kind of deployment, GCPD is setting a precedent for innovation and efficiency in public safety. Although the program is still in its early stages, the department is already exploring the purchase of a second Paladin Knighthawk system. If results continue to meet early expectations, Grand Chute could lead the way in redefining how law enforcement agencies across the state respond to calls for help.

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