Jacksonville Police Department to purchase new drone
The police department of Jacksonville, Illinois, will acquire a new police drone following approval of the purchase by the city council
The aircraft will be purchased from Unmanned Vehicle Technologies, a company based in Fayetteville, Arkansas, according to a report by the Jacksonville Journal-Courier local newspaper.
Jacksonville Police Department already has two police officers who are certified to fly the drone. The department previously operated a drone donated by the Citizen’s Police Academy, which it used for a month and a half before the aircraft suffered a memory system failure.
The department was able to receive an insurance payout of $5,800 following the failure of the drone, but needed additional funds to replace it. The remaining money – approximately $9,000 – will come from tax rebates relating to the purchase of body cameras acquired by the department to comply with Illinois’s recent SAFE-T criminal justice legislation.
The new drone will include a number of upgrades compared with the previous model, including speakers, spotlights and a self-heating battery. It will be used for a range of mission types, including fugitive searches, crime and accident scene photography, and the identification of hotspots on behalf of the Jacksonville Fire Department.
The state government of Illinois recently expanded the range of reasons for police to deploy drones to include the monitoring of large public gatherings.