ydqa ep 28

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John Dickow: Hello and welcome back. Another episode of your drone questions answered. I'm John Dicko with the Drone Launch Academy here to find the answers to your drone questions. Today's question is how are drones used within law enforcement? Today, with me, I have Jerry Wodka. He is the soon to be deputy chief police officer, current sergeant, in the southwest suburbs here in Chicago.

Jerry, thanks for joining me.

Gerard Wodka: John, thanks for having me.

John Dickow: So Jerry, I just want to give you an opportunity first to sort of just... Introduce yourself, tell us how long you've been serving in law enforcement, and how long you've been flying a drone.

Gerard Wodka: Well, my name's Jerry Wodka, and it's pronounced just how you think, vodka with a w, and I've been in law enforcement for over 23 years, and I've been flying drones just over four years now.

John Dickow: Perfect. So let's just kind of get into the meat of the question. I know, you know, drones and law enforcement's Kind of a broad subject, and I'm sure there's a lot of, details, ins and outs to it, but can you just explain to me what kind of situations would a drone be deployed by law enforcement?

Gerard Wodka: A lot of different situations it could be used in law [00:01:00] enforcement.

Uh, I'll talk specifically about Illinois because, we are governed by statute on how we could use it. There are other, other states. For instance, California that has had broader, uh, drone laws where public safety can use it in different circumstances. We've been a little bit more restricted here in Illinois, but recently that has changed, I guess the best thing to do sometimes with how law enforcement can use it is what we cannot use it for. I think everybody fears that, hey, when you hear the word drone. That it's going to become like Skynet from the Terminator movies and so forth where, you know, Hey, the government's using it us as a law enforcement branch of the government that we're going to use it to spy on people and so forth.

So in Illinois, we do have now the, it used to be the Freedom from Drone Surveillance Act, but now it's the, drone. As a first responder act. And if for folks that want to look it up, it's a seven 25, ILCS one 67 15. if you Google that, that'll pop up and give you more specific details. I'll, I'll talk broadly about it.

But, what we can't do is we cannot do random surveillance [00:02:00] with it. That's specific, in the statute. So you won't see us flying around, uh, spying on you in yards and so forth. the other thing that we have. Is we cannot conduct personal business with it, also we cannot use it for events that are like demonstrations, marches, things that are protected by the First Amendment.

if something happened that was criminal during it and something escalated. obviously that's something that we could use a drone, but we can't use that ahead of time. We can't use it during unless, something happened during it, but, but for the sole purpose of that kind of event, we cannot use it.

also we cannot weaponize the drones. We cannot put pepper spray on them. We can't put. pistols on them or different kind of armament. And the other thing that's specified in there is we cannot use facial recognition with it. So, as far as I know, there's no cameras that have the facial rec built into it.

that's available to us as law enforcement. And also just to let folks know the equipment we use is equipment that's available commercially to everybody. These aren't, drones that are used by the military. you know, that are designed specifically for us. , we use drones that are available, to the [00:03:00] general public and the drone we use specifically. That's a flagship drone of DJI, and I know that a lot of utilities companies use them. We just happen to use it for a different purpose.

the circumstances that we would use drones, primarily the thing that we've used it for the most is for missing persons cases. so basically, you might have a child that walks away from a house. You might have an elderly person that walks away. they're missing. They might be seen in a forest reserve area.

A certain area might be a certain time of day, especially at night, that helps us. There's less people out and we do have thermal imagery on our drones, which helps us locate people at night. But, the missing persons cases would be the primary thing most drones are used for in law enforcement.

And then the second one would be. If we obtain a search warrant and we're doing kind of an overwatch as, the search warrants being served or arrest warrants, where if somebody flees from the scene, then the drone can be used to, to follow that person and help the other public safety personnel come in and try to apprehend that person.

Okay. [00:04:00]

John Dickow: Interesting. You just think about, law enforcement, you think about, the ability to do your job as a police officer. And I think a lot of our minds go to like police chases even in like a car or something like that. But it's not necessarily, used you.

You would have to obtain a warrant for then?

Gerard Wodka: For something specific, like if you're doing a search warrant on a house, uh, or there's crime scene, uh, processing that you do it for, but we are certified by the FAA as part 107 pilots. So we do have to abide by their rules also. So. I mean, if you have a high speed chase of a car, I'm still bound as a pilot by visual line of sight.

So if a car is doing a hundred miles per hour, there you go. I can't fly it over a hundred miles per hour and it'd be out of my line of sight pretty quickly. So, uh, that's a circumstance that we couldn't use it for. also. there's time to deploy it. going back to my Skynet reference. I think people think that drones are small, that I just hold my hand out the squad car window and it flies from the palm of my hand and it can follow [00:05:00] a person or target or whatever I wanted to do for me.

But that's just not the case. Ours comes in a big suitcase. It's the size of a small coffee table. Allows me to see it a little bit farther, but. I have to attach legs. I have to extend arms, make sure those are secure. So it takes a few minutes to fire it up, make sure it goes through. It's a pre flight checks.

Everything's good. Batteries are warmed up and it'll be a few minutes before it gets in the air.

John Dickow: That makes sense. I appreciate that. Um, well, let's talk about that. Let's talk about the kind of drone you do fly. What kind of drone is it?

Gerard Wodka: we have the DJI Matrice 300 and we have a dual gimbal set up on it.

So we have the H20T Zenmuse camera attached to it. And we also have a spotlight that's attached to it. with it, we got two smart controllers and we also got the, the battery station. So we have eight batteries. That we, we have with it along with some spares. So we have eight batteries that are charged, ready to go.

And then as we go through those, so say we have a 40 minute flight time, depending on weather conditions and what we're doing with it, then we could do, come [00:06:00] back with the drone, do a hot swap and change batteries, and we got the station that's plugged in so we could start charging that battery right away.

if we do have to go through several cycles, we, we could do that.

John Dickow: Oh, that's great. And you mentioned a spotlight on it. Is that something that's built in within the drone or is that something that you or your department customized the drone

Gerard Wodka: for? No, it's, again, it's another commercial available, part.

We got that through our vendor and basically with the dual gimbal, the camera's on one side, the spotlight's on another. So that's an accessory we purchased. if we're using it at night, that's something that we could shine into cars if we're looking for people. To see if a car is occupied or not. If it's an auto that we're trying to look into, again, depending on the circumstance, even if you're looking for a missing person, although you may see them with in the thermal, image, you have to tell people on the ground that are looking for this person.

Hey, where is this person? So sometimes you could shine the light down. they'll see where the light is because sometimes the drone might be not directly overhead. But it, they'll be, you know, 100 feet ahead of you, 200 feet ahead of you, so you [00:07:00] could shine the light in the direction that the drone's facing, just to give folks on the ground an idea of where to look.

John Dickow: Okay, that makes sense. And I appreciate you earlier on in our conversation just mentioning that, everything you're saying, when it comes to, especially the limitations of, using the drone within law enforcement is, it's very specific to where you're serving and that's here in Illinois.

Yes. But other states probably have different laws and we have viewers from, you know, across the country. And so that's an important thing to keep in mind. I appreciate you mentioning that.

Gerard Wodka: Yes. I do have a couple more things I can mention because it does spell out different things that we can. So Illinois does specify that, hey, we could use it if there's a chance of a terrorist attack, it's got to be intelligence, but that has been verified as credible through Homeland Security.

Again, I mentioned the search warrants. we have to have a reasonable suspicion that action is needed. Swift action is needed. Imminent harm to someone imminent escape from somebody. and even with that, again, going back to transparency and people wanting to know what we're using the drones for, uh, those are [00:08:00] circumstances that within 24 hours of a flight, we do have to notify our local state's attorney's office, letting them know, Hey, we flew the drone in accordance with the statute.

And here's the reason why we did it. Here's a location and that's given to the state's attorney office as another way for the public and our politicians and folks just to know that, hey, we're not abusing the drones and we're not surveilling people. This is what we're using them for.

This is how we used it. And there's a record of that. So we're not doing random things.

John Dickow: I appreciate that too, because honestly, tell people about, you know, drone launch academy, what I do and how I like to talk about drones and from a lot of people, sometimes I get like, whoa, drones, you know, that's scary.

drones are something that can be watching me, you know, through my, the windows in my house or something like that. And so, it's really great to know that, you know, that within the law enforcement sphere, that there are, Logical limitations that there are laws that you abide by and there's levers for transparency.

And that's, that's really good to hear.

Gerard Wodka: It's a great tool. I mean, it gives for specialty positions within the [00:09:00] departments. also the technology that's available on the drones is also available on helicopters, but you're looking at thousand dollars an hour, to operate a helicopter.

You're putting human beings on board and if something were to go wrong, you know, now you've got people on the ground and people in the aircraft that things could potentially go wrong and loss of life and injuries.

plus if we use these for special events, we could use them for like, uh, 4th of July parades, other stuff, just to go back to more transparency, if we do use it for a parade or a food festival and so forth, the statute does limit. Hey, it's got to be so many people and above. We can't use it for like 20 people.

They're having picnic in a park and so forth. And if we are going to use it during a special event, we have to advertise it 24 hours in advance that, Hey, due to an upcoming event, police drones may be used for real time monitoring of it. so that's another way we do that. And if you're at the event.

We don't want to give a feeling that, Hey, you've got helicopters flying around. There's policemen everywhere. We want people to come have a good time [00:10:00] in the neighborhood, enjoy the community without hearing the worrying of a chopper overhead and giving that perception that, you know, a fear of, you know, should we worry, be worried about security or

John Dickow: not?

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. And it's also, you know, very practical. Like you mentioned, it's taxpayer dollars and that's a lot more responsible to launch a drone rather than a helicopter. Although I'm sure there's helicopter, you know, that makes sense sometimes for a helicopter

Gerard Wodka: and going back to the, the transparency part too, is the statute will further if people look it up.

It defines how long we could retain some of the footage that we have. under the old statute, we couldn't even fly it for PR purposes, for public relations. So we couldn't show people, hey, here's what we see, here's how it works and so forth. But now the statute allows us to do that. But even under that circumstance, we can't record any data.

Uh, and then certain things where I said, hey, the special events within 24 hours, we have to delete that footage. And if we use it for other purposes, where I said the missing person's cases or other special circumstances, we have to delete that within 30 [00:11:00] days of getting that, unless it's used in a criminal case, you know, court may take several months, several years to go through the process, but then it's secured in the file and it goes through the court process.

John Dickow: Well, that's great. that's responsible. I want to talk about you before we wrap up here and just how you got into drones as somebody who's been in law enforcement for 20 plus years, tell us how you, got introduced to a drone.

Gerard Wodka: Santa surprised me with it for Christmas one year.

And then with the Chicago weather and, uh, training commitment that I had out East at a Marine Corps base, I couldn't fly it there. And. Then when the weather warmed up, I was able to finally break it out. And it was just going out there and flying it. And I, I did certain training. there's different online courses I did to get my part 107 as well as through a local college.

I ended up doing a part 107 prep class that was law enforcement related. In that they gave guidelines on what the law is, but the rest, the four and a half other days of the program, we're learning the part 107 requirements. I did some training courses online. I also did drone launch Academy. I did [00:12:00] the aerial A to Z course with Alex Harris.

so I've been able to help some friends and family out with some real estate stuff. also with, uh, water skiing, boating, tubing, things like that. So we've had some, fun personally with that. But, I would tell you the best thing to do is go out there and fly. the whole thing that they tell you where if you're not crashing, you're not flying, uh, the, the DJI care.

package has come in very handy to me twice already. well worth the insurance plan with that. but you know, different weather conditions you learn, Hey, I might have a certain flight time, but when it's cold out here, it's not going to work as long. Your fingers are going to get cold.

The batteries aren't going to last long. You're going to learn different winds. Hey, I don't want to do it. You're going to look at different conditions where, Hey, there's people here. If it were to crash, how would I go about if that happens? So, the biggest thing is. Again, we use it in missions in law enforcement and those are scenarios we could practice for that.

But you got to get behind the sticks. You got to fly the drones and find out how they respond different situations when it's close or farther. You might have power lines in the area cause interference. So the only way to learn that [00:13:00] is being in the seat behind the sticks and flying it and getting the experience that way.

John Dickow: Well, that's great advice. A lot of our viewers, our listeners are people who are just looking to do just that, apply drones to their current line of work or start a, plays a whole new trail with drones. that is something that we hear often is you just got to get out there and try it and fly it and learn it and, take the necessary courses.

now within your, police department, Were you able to, get their blessing and have them say, okay, well, yeah, go ahead and take these courses. We could definitely use this within our department. We can use these skills. Or was this something that you had to, kind of make a case for?

Gerard Wodka: Well, one of my partners did a great job in starting the program, and we started with the DJI Inspire. and then we upgraded to the Matrice and then we got a Mavic Mini. we found with the Matrice, with the cost of it, lot of guys were afraid of crashing it. So they wanted to get some experience with the small drone first.

And we had different applications with it, but, that was one of those. Hey, you had to get the part 107 so you could fly under that. And then we established training where we would use, either different scenarios or [00:14:00] different things that we found online. Again, I know we've used like remote pilot 101, we've used drone, pilot ground school.

there's different programs that help you with the, the, the part 107 prep. but there's not a lot of courses out there really that help you with the actual flight time. one thing that my department sent me through and we're able to bring back as well is, uh, through AUVSI. I did the, the, the top operator program, so I got that certification.

I guess more advice that I would give folks is, Make sure you stay on top of your part 107 rules. And if you like do the top operator program or other things, know the laws and do your homework because a lot of people really don't understand. There's a lot of people in law enforcement don't understand the rules.

They just think, oh, you can't fly a drone here or. That's against the law. And it's like, no, you can't. Even when I've helped family or friends out, you know, with say real estate videos, it's like, you can't do that. I'm calling the police and I implore them, Hey, call the police. I'll explain to them. you get those doubts in your mind where I'm like, I don't know if I should be [00:15:00] flying or not.

I don't know if I can do your homework ahead of time, know it, call the local department, talk to them. but again, Illinois law enforcement is governed by it, but in Illinois, there are no local ordinances or anything because mainly utility companies would have a hard time using drones for their purposes because whatever line may go through one town and then another town, they might prohibit it.

Another town might, they might need a permit. It would just become a nightmare for them to try to inspect their, their equipment. Uh, utilities with that stuff. So that's why that stuff isn't in place. But I think educating people what drones are, how they can be used, what they can, what they can't do, I think is very important for folks to get to know, because you're going to get questioned a lot.

And if you've got a reflective vest on. They're just going to see the drone. They're going to think you're recording them in the backyard, in their pool or other stuff, and legitimate privacy concerns that people don't know they're going to ask, but it's a great time for us to educate folks and be like, no, here you go.

Do you want to see the screen? Here's how it works. I've let people fly it and they're amazed by it, you know, and they look at [00:16:00] getting their kids drones or the drones themselves or for grandkids. So it's. a neat thing, but it could be a touchy thing. So get to know about it and, and, and educate everybody that you can.

John Dickow: Now that's, that's really great advice. Drones aren't going anywhere. And so it is about understanding the rules, understanding how they work And you know, the safety measures to the privacy, it's all, it's all very important. So the more, you know, the better, I really appreciate this conversation, Jerry, this was really great.

Yeah. And I feel like we only scratched, you know, the surface here. And so I would love to have you back on and talk more details on, on how drones are used in law enforcement.

Gerard Wodka: Yeah, I'd love to be back. And if, if you get questions from listeners and specifics, I'd be glad to entertain those questions.

But like you said, we did just scratch it. There's a lot of laws that govern law enforcement with it. And if folks are saying, Hey, I'm in law enforcement, I would get into it.

Or, Hey, I want a future in law enforcement to do it. it is one of those, you got to become a police officer first. It's kind of like saying, Hey, I want to become a homicide detective. It's like, well, I'm going to become a police officer, be a drone pilot. It's there might be different ways. Bigger departments [00:17:00] have specialized units, but, we could get in a whole lot more how we could use it, how we use them, the practicalities of it.

And, and so forth. And, and I love to help whoever out that I can help.

John Dickow: That's awesome. Again, Jerry Wodka. He's a current sergeant soon to be deputy chief here in the southwest suburbs of Chicago. Jerry, thank you again for joining us. And you can submit your own drone questions. We'll find the answer to them.

You can submit that at ydqa. io. Go ahead and type it in. We'll see it. Or if you're part of the Drone Launch Connect community, go ahead, type it in there. we'll find it and we'll find the answer. Until then, we'll see you in the sky.