TUCSON, Ariz. (KGUN) — The Tucson Police Department received a drone from a member of the community Tuesday.
The drone will help police map crashes, photograph large crime scenes and search for missing people, according to a press release from TPD. Eventually, the department wants to deploy drones with SWAT teams and Bomb Squads.
Tucsonan Brian Gant said "I didn't want to just donate to a Goodwill or anything. I was looking for maybe a youth organization. But then I stumbled across the website for the national drone donation team [The National Public Safety Drone Donation Program] and got in touch with them after seeing that they had someone here in the Tucson area. And decided this was probably the best to assure that the drone got a life usage and actually got put to good use."
Tucson Police says the first step is training more drone operators.
So far, the department has two licensed operators, with a goal to license over 100 operators.
There were three additional donations made totaling more than $8000;
- A donation of search and rescue software donated by https://loc8.life
- A donation of accident and crime scene mapping software by https://www.skyebrowse.com
- And a drone lighting kit donated by https://www.foxfury.com
