Taking flight against crime: Maryland police drone pilot program aides in arrests

MONTGOMERY COUNTY, Md. (WJLA) — Nowadays, more and more companies and agencies are using drones – even some Sinclair news stations use drones – and a law enforcement agency in Maryland is joining that trend.

After seeking commpunity input for its proposed ‘Drone as First Responder’ program back in September, last month the Montgomery County Police Department became the first major city police department to use drones to fight crime.

The pilot program has only been live for about 10 days, and arrests have already been made.

In one incident, the Raven drone, as it is called, zeroed in on an “aggressive shoplifter” in downtown Silver Spring.

The drone arrived before police officers, and just minutes later, the suspect was apprehended.

In another instance, the drone helped police apprehend a 31-year-old repeat shoplifter who had targeted a CVS Pharmacy and attempted to flee on a public bus, but he was not aware a camera was watching.

“Five minutes into my shift, I saw the call pop up, and I said, ‘let’s go fly,’” said Lt. Doug Miller, with Montgomery County Police.

So, the way it works is we are flying from our office in Rockville at the special operations division, the drone is prepositioned at a building in downtown Silver Spring. There is someone on the roof that has control of it and launches it and makes sure the air space is clear.

Lt. Miller was the one flying the day of the CVS Pharmacy arrest. The police force has been using drones since 2020 for things like search and rescue, tactical situations and finding missing children.

But they have now expanded to include fighting crimes. The two unmanned aircraft are also a way for the department to deal with a shortage of officers.

The pilot program costs $350,000 and Police Chief Marcus Jones said they will only be used for crimes that put the community in danger and will not be used to monitor areas or random people.

Right now, we are still working on that final thing that we need that is called live 911 activated, so we can hear the 911 calls as it comes in,” Lt. Miller said.

"We are not there yet, but it should be in the next week or two. But, right now, we can see the calls pop up on our computer-aided dispatch, and that’s what happened with the CVS, we saw it pop up and the officers were tied up with other things. So, we were able to get over there and watch the guy, he was actually leaving the parking lot.”