LAC LA BICHE - On May 9, drones could be spotted in the skies over Lac La Biche as officials with the Alberta RCMP were using the community as a test location their remotely-piloted aircraft systems (RPAS). The test flights used various models with varying technologies and systems, including mapping, thermal-imaging, and monitoring software.
The trial exercise involved mock scenarios to test capabilities of the machines, educate staff flying the drones and familiarize local RCMP members with drone-assisted callouts.
Lac La Biche was chosen along with Red Deer and Stony Nakoda First Nation, which is near the RCMP’s Cochrane detachment, to host two-week trials that will be taking place in May and June.
The tests brought several top-ranking RCMP administrators to the community last week for the first series of tests that ran from May 3 to 12. The next set will take place in mid-June.
Alberta RCMP Chief Superintendent Kevin Kunetzki, who also serves as the deputy criminal operations officer for the RCMP’s K division was in Lac La Biche to watch the training. He said the main purposes of the RPAS program, which the RCMP has had for roughly a decade, has been for events such as collision reconstruction, as well as for the Emergency Response Team (ERT), and aerial investigations, including taking photographs of crime scenes. Recently, however, the RCMP has been focused more on using RPAS for public safety.
“So, where it has been more of an investigative tool that has been used for over the last 10 years, now we’re moving into enhancing public safety,” Kunetzki told Lakeland This Week.
The system also protects responding officers.
The drones, he said, allow a camera lens to view a scenario without risking officer or public safety, thus allowing police to search the vehicle prior to setting out to look for a suspect. The drone technology enables police to see if suspects are armed and to relay information-including geographic coordinates-back and forth with responding officers on the ground.
“Having that advanced information is, I’ll call it a game changer in terms of police and public safety,” he stated. “Whereas before, we might find ourselves being forced into a situation to arrest somebody quickly and then putting ourselves unnecessarily at risk.”
First and foremost, he explained, trials like the ones in Lac La Biche, are about officers getting more experience and learning about different types of drone technology. At each of the three sites, the RCMP is trying different drone technology, different software in different environments.
Kunetzki said there were advantages to holding a trial in Lac La Biche, one being that the area isn’t too large, filling a lot of area into the test’s two nautical mile flying radius.
“It’s a mid-size community, which is what we wanted to try,” he said. “It’s the very first location that we thought to go because we can learn slowly where the call volumes aren’t going to be too high, but there are calls for service here that you know we could test this technology.”
All of the tests during the pilot program will be carried out in the skies over public areas only, says Lac La Biche RCMP Sgt Trevor Cardinal.
The local detachment commanders said the drone system may still be years away from being standard issue for local RCMP, but he knows it will be a good addition.
“To be able to use it in our community is an asset. To be able to have one in every other car…every second car…that’s a couple years away, but I think it’s happening a lot faster than they originally planned for,” Cardinal said.
