Last September Bellaire Police assisted West University Police in apprehending a burglary suspect with the help of a Mavic Zoom drone. The drone, presented to BPD by the Bellaire Police & Fire Foundation, captured a video of the suspect in a backyard. The drone followed the movements of the suspect which allowed police to find and arrest him.
ABC13 recently interviewed Officer Aaron Lysack who is one of four licensed drone pilots in the Bellaire Police Department. Officer Lysack said, “It goes about 50 miles an hour. It’s got a range of about three miles, as long as we can see it visually. It can go up to 400 feet high. The thermal camera on it can see a human walking down the street or even a warm vehicle that was recently parked. The zoom goes up to 30 times optical and 180 times digital.”
The abc13.com article states that “The department has big goals for its new drone program and hopes to deploy a drone as a first response to all calls from crime to traffic crashes and natural disasters. The Bellaire Fire Department is also using the technology to check dangerous fires and find hot spots with the thermal camera.”
The Bellaire Police Department posted the following video of the interaction.
