The End of Response Times? How Drones are Redefining Public Safety

I find about four kids walking. One has shotgun, the other ones have some handguns. We're able to get a visual with the drone. We're able to zoom in. I can actually see how they start manipulating it. Welcome to dronecast, everyone. Today we're thrilled to introduce David Naranjo, a seasoned expert at the forefront of drone technology and public safety. As a DFR pilot, you gotta be an incident commander. At times you have the overview of what's going on. I take that away from them and let them focus on what's right in front of them. Anytime before they're going to make entry, we're going to send the drone in first. The operators are looking. If you crash, they're going to be like, how are we going to see what's inside now? Flew into a house, I didn't set it to hover. We lost some connection, went into return to home. By the time I was able to reposition, end up hitting the ceiling, going down. Welcome to dronecast, everyone. Today we're thrilled to introduce David Naranjo, a seasoned expert at the forefront of drone technology and public safety. David's career with the Chula Vista Police Department spans over a decade, during which he has seamlessly transitioned from a patrol officer to his current role as a drone as first responder DFR pilot. His extensive experience, including tactical deployments, SWAT missions, and his role as a UAS instructor underscores his deep commitment to integrating drones into critical operations. David's hand on experience and leadership in managing drones for public safety make him a standout figure in the field. What truly sets David apart is his multifaceted approach to utilizing drones in high stake environments. Whether it's providing crucial air support during tactical operations or training new officers in UAS technology, his contributions have significantly enhanced the effectiveness and safety of public safety missions. Join us as we devolve into David's experiences, explore the challenges and innovations in drone operations, and gain insights into how drones are transforming emergency response strategies. Welcome to dronecast. David, how are you? Good, thank you for having me. Excellent. Well, good stuff. Well, let's go ahead and dive right in. David, you've had such a diverse career with roles ranging from patrol officer to DFR pilot. Can you share a particular moment or mission that particularly stood out to you and shaped your perspective on the role of drones in public safety? Yeah, definitely. So I know when I was first in patrol there are a lot of opportunities or different things that showed, especially since we were able to stream the video first off. That was a huge change. Once when we had the helicopter up. They were trying to guide us into something. And it was kind of hard understanding what they were seeing from the air and where we were going. And then seeing that was great. And then going into dfr, we had one specific call that I remember very fondly where. Where we had a call where a bunch of kids were walking around with guns on the street. We heard the 911 call come in because we have technology that allows us to hear the call as the dispatcher receives it. So we're able to launch, get overhead less than a minute. Once we get overhead, I find about four kids walking. One has what looks to be like a shotgun. The other ones have some handguns. So we're able to get a visual with the drone. We're able to zoom in. I can actually see how they start manipulating it. Where I can see that it's kind of a single shot. Where it's a BB gun. I could see how it starts cycling. And then I can also see that they started shooting some water bottles that were up on a ledge. And seeing that and then seeing there was no immediate danger where they were at, officers were able to stand by. They were able to pull up that drone feed that I was show. And then they were able to start game planning on how they're going to approach this. They could see the same thing that I see of how the gun is cycling, how it's being manipulated. And then it kind of changed the situation from something that could have been a live firearm. Deescalated it where we can tell it was a BB gun. And then we were able to kind of approach it a lot differently where everyone ended up staying safe and just that de escalation and giving the patrol officers that, I guess more informative decision making has been huge. And I think it helps protect the officers as well as the community. And it's been kind of great ever since. Man. Like just. Even just hearing this from you too, I can. I can see this like this whole undertaking because what if you did the other. Right. Like officers. Multiple officers coming right to. Without having that situational awareness or really being able to make the. Have that higher, like. Like larger choice there in front of it. And. Or if you did, if you sent out a. Like a full helicopter, it'd be almost too much like it's. It's a really tactical device. And now DFR is just opening up so many doors. That's even larger. Right. Like this is. It's an amazing thing. Yeah. The faster response times that come with it. We don't have our own helicopter in our city. So by the time we call them, if they're at base, it could be 40 minutes. So being able to respond to something within a minute has been huge. And getting eyes on scene, it's been game changer for sure. Wow, that's amazing. Well, let's. So with your extensive experience in both operational and training roles, how has your approach with using drones in critical incidents evolved over the years? And is there a particular lesson or insight from your journey that has profoundly influences how you conduct drone operations today? Yeah, simply, it's just been if you can think it, you can do it. As I've learned over the years through different mistakes or different trainings. When we have people come up with ideas, it's like, let's try it. There's so many ways that drones can be used that it's not just so one sided. So just, I'll give one example where we had a felony stop of a vehicle was a robbery suspect. They wanted to kind of have us come to the door, seem probably like an armed suspect in a way. But the car wasn't in a spot where it could be immobilized or pin it in. So it ended up taking off on us, turned into a pursuit. But even something where we thought of those stop sticks where we can't get close enough to put it on the vehicle, maybe get it if it does try and take off, where, hey, is there a way we can hook this up to a drone? Fly the drone, land it, have the stop stick on the tire and set it up that way where most of the time it's outside of your normal thinking. So just through trial and error and just thinking each situation you have, like, how could we have used this to maybe help us? I think that's kind of been something that's influenced me. Even when it's a normal call, it's like, hey, how could we add a drone to this? What could a drone be used? What are the trade offs? If we were to use it in that way, we don't have a way of, I guess, letting go of the stopstick. Maybe we'd have to just tie it with rope. If it's that and then you just down the drone off to the side of it and that won't be taken out of play, but we may have another one. So it's a lot of thinking and I think it's just learning, just being open. I love this. Yeah. This is, I mean you're like, you're bringing like, like, like sci fi Technology concepts right into real life right now. Because there, there is the ability and option for you and yeah, I love it. This is great. Yeah, it's just, just if you can think it, try it. But the big thing is training it to make sure you know if it works or if it doesn't work. But anything more to evolve into the conversation there? Yeah, so that's more the tactical side of that. So with swap missions or out in patrol from a DFR side, I think it's just having someone experienced in that role as an officer, someone who understands kind of the city, how calls work. Because as a DFR pilot, you got to be an incident commander at times. You have the overview of what's going on. So sometimes newer officers might not be comfortable taking that role. Sometimes they might not know the city layout still. So I've noticed that officers who tend to have more experience in patrol can kind of transition easier into it. Um, but it could, it could change, but you just gotta be able to. Yeah, you just gotta be able to know how to handle the situation, give the officers the information that they need. You've been in those situations on the ground. What are you looking for? So kind of along those lines with your evolution within law enforcement, you. You've been in all these different roles. So that really probably gives you a better perspective and a way to help in training and help to transfer that data. Because you've been in other people's shoes as well. Yeah. And like, here's an example. So also on dfr, we've had it where we're on scene, we're watching it. As officers go to make contact, it ends up turning into a fight right away. Officers, you want to prioritize the fight, but you still need to get on the radio to let someone know what's going on. So for us as the DFR pilot, we'll get on the air right away, ask for emergency traffic, start having officers respond. For us, it's code three is lights and sirens. So they'll start responding to the officer and. And then the officer doesn't have to worry about that radio communication. So I can tell them, hey, it's going to be this corner, it's going to be mid block. It's going to be this specific curb line because sometimes it'll move, sometimes we have a hundred block. So that's kind of extra steps that come in as the DFR pilot, where you just got to be able to guide people, be calm under pressure, know what they need. You obviously see them fighting. You know, I'm not going to leave the radio to them. Why not? I take that away from them and let them focus on what's right in front of them at that time. Quick break. To highlight whether you're flying, sharing or managing your drone program, DroneSense has everything you need. It's hardware agnostic, so it works with a variety of drones, sensors and other hardware, giving you ultimate flexibility and with the ability to collaborate across agencies securely. DroneSense helps you scale from one drone to 100, supporting you in everything from routine calls call to disaster response. To learn more and get started, check out the link in the description. Makes sense Now, David, talking about high pressure environments and such, with your experience with SWAT missions, how have you seen the use of video drones evolve over time? And what specific learning positions have you identified as critical for enhancing tactical operations during these missions? Yeah, so I've just seen them grow to be a necessity. Now on any SWAT deployment that we have before, we used to have those robots that would go around, they tend to fail on stairs or different things would fail during it. As we've started incorporating drones and then even our SWAT operators see what we get from it. Now it's if we don't have it on scene, it's a problem. So anytime SWAT's deployed, we have our drone team deployed with them. Anytime before they're going to make entry, we're going to send the drone in first. It's kind of become that necessary step for them in their process and them learning kind of the capabilities of it. So we've had it where they want to deploy gas in the house because we're not getting a certain response, we'll fly the drone in perch inside the house. If we have a thermal that might be able to see through the drone or through the smoke, so then we'll do that and then they're like, this is great. So just getting the SWAT operators seeing what happens, they're like, oh, this is the best thing ever. So something I talk about often is that the aha moments and you're hitting that exact moment right there, it's that, oh, whoa. This is okay. Yeah, this is amazing. Yeah. So I've just seen it where if the drone, for whatever reason we know sometimes they need updates, sometimes there's fails, magnetic interference. Anytime there's a delay, you can kind of see them like, oh, we want like we need the drone. I think them having it now is like a good safety net for them. And I think it wasn't always like that, was it? I don't know. Yeah, I was never a SWAT guy myself, but I know them just already kind of getting a lot of the unknowns out of the way because we'll have one of the operators or the sergeant that's with us either watching the feed. If we're flying indoors, they can see how many doors there are. They could see what's been like a soft clear for them. We can kind of pick apart kind of how they're going to do their entry. And I think that's been kind of huge as we go forward. And we've seen some drones that try and gear towards that interior flight. So just the evolution of it's been good, critical things. It's just trying to get some stress inoculation when you fly. Definitely flying and training is a lot different than being on a mission because you know, everyone's looking. The command post is looking at what you're flying. The operators are looking. If you crash, they're gonna be like, how are we gonna see what's inside now? So it's definitely trying to. It's perfect. Yeah, you can replicate that as much as you can. It's always going to be the nerves. It's kind of the performance nerves, but of course, and honestly it just takes like lots of practice and, and lots and lots of flying and all those, those little things of just flying start to become much easier. But then again, it's exactly the case. It's always going to be different and every scenario is going to be a different, different one. I don't have experience, but I just know in other realms. Yeah, I've, I've definitely felt it. But the constant continuing to fly and so on, it's like, it's like playing guitar. You have to play guitar to be good at guitar. So Same. Yeah. And the big thing with that is they gotta make sure you know your own proficiencies because there are times they might ask you like, hey, well can we do this? And if you've done it before, it's like, oh yeah, I know. Or it's like there's a chance we might lose it trying to do this. Is that something you're okay with? And then we could put another one up or kind of. That communication is huge too with them. Nice. Well, David, could you provide examples of missions where drones face significant challenges such as power failure or inadequate lighting? How did these issues impact the mission and what were the strategies that you found effective in mitigating these problems in future operations? Yeah, so early on our interior drones were the Minis that we had and a lot of them. Once you went inside, go straight into addy mode, make it tough to fly. There were times once the lighting got really low, we tried putting lights on it. It would just take off on you, fly right into a wall. And then we'd lose it and we'd be down another drone. We've had it where we had to think outside the box. Then if the lights on the that drone is not sufficient enough, we take, say, another Enterprise or a drone that actually has a spotlight on it and we flew it together where you can actually light up the room more for the other drone. So then it kind of trains that off a little bit. I love this. I would love to see footage of this. This is great. We know it needs adequate lighting, but how do we get more light into a house if they have all the lights off? So that was one. I remember one specific incident. We're like, hey, well, let's fly these other drones. Let's light up the room for another one. I'm okay flying an Enterprise inside. I know some people aren't, since it is more on that medium sized platform, but that's just where your proficiencies come in. Um, so that was kind of one huge thing that we saw some deficiencies and how can we mitigate that and kind of help it perform better? Um, we've also had a couple other drones where we've just noticed some deficiencies. One was an operator error, which I'll throw myself down, but with the Avada, we share drones, we don't have our own assigned to us. So depending on what settings you have, we flew. I had the RTH set to Mode 5. What is this? Yeah, exactly. I had the RTH returned to home. I didn't double check that. So it stayed at the normal one. Flew into a house. I didn't set it to hover. So as you can imagine, we lost some connection. Had a bunch of cars between us, so probably something with the metal had it lose connection. Went into return to home. By the time I was able to reposition, ended up hitting the ceiling going down. So we had to get another drone. That's a learning experience that we take from that. So it's not really a drone failure, but an operator failure. And then we've just noticed some stuff with controls. So the Avada's Motion 1 controller is used to the way you can move up and down your. Like your altitude changes. Yeah. And then once you know exactly what you're talking about. Yeah, yeah. And then you go into the inadequate lighting, it loses its vision, sensors and with a motion controller, there's not much you can do with that. They've obviously upgraded that. I know some people have gotten a lot better with that. But we found at first we didn't have the normal RCS for it, so we went out purchased them because you notice. Yeah, yeah. So a lot of it just sometimes comes with trial and error. So we've just learned. Yeah, well, give yourself some credit. None of these drones are indoor drones and you guys are finding ways to, to solve a problem or add situational awareness in these high stress environments. So just then having a, having an enterprise follow in with a Spotlight attachment, I, I love that. It's a great, that's brilliant idea to solve a problem. And then those minis you can just, you know, buy, buy the done so cheap now. Yep. Let's fly NEOs. Have you used NEOs yet? We have not used NEOs yet, no. Yeah, curious. Just we just pretty much avadas lately and then we have a couple other indoor ones. Super interesting. Well, considering the unique environment of tactical missions, how do you assess the adequacy of drone training for public safety personnel and what improvements would you suggest to better prepare them for the complexities encountered in real world scenarios? I think it's just trying to test real world scenarios as much as possible. As I said before, with the stress inoculation that comes with going out on an actual call out kind of things riding on it. Especially if it's someone who's armed in the house and you don't want to be that guy that crashes it. I know we all kind of feel that. So finding ways that you can test it, try and make them as realistic scenarios. If you can push your capabilities during training, cause that's the time that you'll learn. For us, we've always had the philosophy that if a drone crashes or we damage a drone in training, then that's fine. It's kind of pricey doing business sometimes. And as long as we can learn kind of how far we can take it, what are we comfortable with? How can we use this has been kind of helped us. So we know going into it, we know what we can do, what we can't do, what might make us lose the drone. But do the pros outweigh the cons of that? Where checking under this bed, it might be the last spot we need to check. We can get another drone up. This one might hit the bed skirt, we might lose it depending. So it's just those trade offs and then debriefing is always huge. What improvements after each. Even just during real world, we things that drones Might not be Used for. It's like, hey, is there something here we could have used it for? Like I said with the stop sticks. So now we train that. See? Can it carry that weight? How does it pull it? So just taking all those things, taking ideas, testing them and seeing if they actually work. But you don't want to go to a scene and then try it and then see if it works. You want to try it in training. So we're always open to new ideas. I learn new things all the time and I always want to test them then to see if they will work or not. And that's a wrap for today's episode of dronecast Rethinking Public Safety One Drone at a Time I hope you found today's conversation insightful and thought provoking. As always, we want to hear from you. What do you think of today's topics? Do you have any questions or suggestions for future episodes? Don't forget, you can reach out to us on LinkedIn at Dronecast rethinking public safety one drone at a time or head over to DroneSense.com Dronecast to share your thoughts and get more content from the show. If you enjoyed this episode, please consider subscribing, rating and sharing it with others who are passionate about the future of drones and public safety. Thanks for listening and we'll catch you next time.