American COP Magazine October 2012 Digital Edition - Page 28

DAtroN Scout Portable Micro Drone! A 28 Photos: Joe Novelozo and Jade Moldé Although the Datron Scout looks like a radio-controlled consumer toy at first glance, it’s remarkably sophisticated. It offers FLIR and photo surveillance capabilities, among other features. Dave Douglas The Scout Drone can be easily maneuvered around buildings, cars and trees, making it just right for covert operations. bout a hundred years ago, when I was a cop with a large department in Southern California, we were suffering with the pandemic scourge of methamphetamine use. The precursors were easy to get, it was easy to cook, easy to step on and there was certainly no lack of a customer base in my city and the county. A great deal of the production and distribution chain was the realm of organized outlaw biker criminal enterprises. Most had large compounds in the backcountry of the county making it hugely difficult for surveillance and intelligence gathering. Combat A taskforce was put together to combat the cretins and stop the flow of this highly destructive drug. Most of the alphabet soup of federal agencies were involved, along with practically every one of the 18 various municipal, county and state jurisdictions in our area. Once the difficult and dangerous job our undercover officers, deputies and agents had gathering actionable information, it was handed off to the tactical guys. We had to come up with a plan to raid the locations safely and allow other taskforce members to gather evidence and arrest the suspects. But, how do you do that when the bikers’ cooking locations were virtual fortresses deep in the backcountry, surrounded by forest, booby-trapped and well protected from assault? We didn’t have the luxury of satellite imagery and our aircrafts were small and easily sighted due to altitude limitations. The US Navy had a large presence in our area, and one of our guys suggested a fly over by a Navy F14 equipped with a photoreconnaissance package. “Oh yeah, that’s gonna be simple … should be a walk in the park … maybe we can do it this afternoon.” But, it was the best we could come up with at the time. Our taskforce had a Deputy Assistant US Attorney and a Deputy District Attorney from the County attached. We used them for vertical prosecution. The Assistant US Attorney was tasked with securing federal search warrants, and it just so happened the County Deputy DA Call The Navy WWW.AMERICANCOPMAGAZINE.COM • OCTOBER2012