Drone video: Owasso Police use drones for variety of emergencies

Owasso Police now has a fleet of drones, in all different sizes, that they can use for all types of emergencies, from stand-offs to search and rescue.

Police say these drones help keep officers and people safer and help police be more efficient. When someone calls 911, police often send a drone first, because it can get there faster than officers

Police use the drones for everything from burglary calls to shootings, to fires, and clearing a house during a search warrant.

Owasso Police Drone Fleet:

Owasso Police has a wide variety of drones they use, and 10 drone pilots are on staff.

1. They have mini drones they use for interior searches, like during a search warrant or clearing a house ahead of the SWAT team.
2. They have a stealth drone that can fly really high and is very quiet.
3. They have an "everyday use" drone that has thermal capabilities that they use to find suspects or help firefighters rescue people during a house or building fire.
4. They also have a drone that can fly in 60-mile-per-hour winds that would be used during search and rescue operations.

Catching Car Burglary Suspects

Owasso Police recently used the thermal capabilities on the drone to arrest a man they say was breaking into cars at an apartment complex. Someone called 911, so police sent the drone and immediately saw the man pulling on door handles, but as officers showed up, he hid, then ran. But the drone never lost him. Video shows the man hiding behind an AC unit, then later he crawled under a car to hide.

"The drone pilot is telling officers exactly where the bad guy is, exactly what he is doing. Even if he is trying to hide, you can't because it's under thermal," said Lieutenant Nick Boatman with Owasso Police.

Keeping Officers Safe:

When officers get to a scene, like a shooting, standoff or a domestic call, they want to know if a suspect is armed, and drones can give officers those answers. Video shows officers using a drone when serving a warrant.

"They are so high, bad guys often don't know they are there, and they can zoom way in and see what a person is doing with their hands. You can see if they are talking on a phone, texting, have a weapon, and you can communicate that to the officers on scene to both protect the officers and, in some cases, protect the suspect," said Boatman.

Keeping the Community Safe From the Sky:

Police say there was an incident several months ago where a man was suicidal and sitting in his truck along Highway 169. Police used a drone during the standoff, and they were able to zoom in and see that he had a gun. He later took off but wasn't able to get away from the drone, and he was later taken into custody.

"It's hard to see how we did some of the calls without this capability," said Boatman. "This can both take calls away from officers that don't need to go on calls and can also make safer the calls the officers are going to go into where there is a high risk of danger."

Owasso Police has a drone pilot on every shift, and detectives and the SWAT team use them too. They also use the thousands of drone videos for training.