EUGENE, Ore.—Eugene Police Department’s new drone program, called Drones as First Responders, is looking to give the department a quicker reaction time to emergencies. A total of four drones will be positioned across the Eugene area enabling them to react to emergency calls more quickly.
Starting in May 2024, the department has already sent the drones out to 445 calls for service and logged 15 captures of suspects. Sgt. Kyle Williams is one of the drone pilots who is in charge of the program. Williams said the drones and their bases will be located on separate properties that will keep them charged and ready for operation.
“For the four units that we have in, they are about $65,000, and so there’s two at each launch site which allows us to go back and forth between the two,” Williams said. “It will land in there, the doors will close up, and then it will dry it, heat it, cool it, charge it with the box fully closed.”
Flying at 30 miles per hour, the drones can reach their target with just a few minutes. However, the drones must maintain a constant line of sight with ground crews. Williams said Skinner Butte is a major obstacle that prevents the drones from operating in Northwest Eugene…