Police using drones to crack down on reckless e-bike riders in Gilbert

'Track and guide': Gilbert Police using drones for reckless e-bike riders

Gilbert Police are implementing safety from the sky, deploying drones to crack down on reckless e-bike riders. FOX 10's Taylor Wirtz learns more on their new strategy.

GILBERT, Ariz. - E-bikes are one of the most hotly debated topics throughout the Valley. But one police department is changing the way they crack down on people—mainly teenagers—who use them unsafely. 

Local perspective:

On Facebook groups in Gilbert, it's common to see someone calling out teenagers for riding e-bikes recklessly. Gilbert Police respond to these calls all the time, but they’re not pursuing these kids in squad cars these days. They’re letting technology take the lead.

"Some of them go upwards of 50, 60 miles an hour," said Officer Travis Sheppard with the police department.

And when you put teens and e-bikes together, Sheppard said things can get dangerous.

"You put that on a roadway and you put that with certain judgment decision making where there's vehicles as well. There's pedestrians. Frankly, it's scary," Sheppard said.

Why you should care:

He said too many e-bike-related tragedies are preventable.

"That's the worst news that we bring to families is that your loved one's been seriously injured or has been killed," Sheppard said.

As the department works to make the streets safer, it’s deploying drones to make the act of pursuing reckless e-bike riders safer as well.

"We like to say we like to track and guide, not chase. So it allows us from the air to have eyes," Sheppard said. "We're able to pinpoint where these riders are. It allows us to guide our officers to where these groups or these individual riders are and then allows us to do that safely without chasing them."

What we know:

Sheppard said the drones are particularly useful for breaking up large groups of teens on e-bikes.

"When they group up, as you can imagine, a lot of that decision-making goes by the wayside, and it becomes very, very reckless activity on the roadway just by sheer volume," Sheppard said.

He said officers can figure out where the offenders are and make contact with them via the drone, then track them safely as the riders disperse.

Dig deeper:

"That allows us to kind of identify maybe a couple of them and allow us from the air to track them safely. And then our officers on the ground are guided into where they're at, kind of where they bed down or hide," Sheppard said.

They’re able to do it all at a lower risk to the riders, the officers, and anyone else in the area.

"It literally allows us to slow down everything and not get in a situation where what we call where we're pushing somebody," Sheppard said.

What's next:

Gilbert Police aren't just using these drones on the e-bikes, but are able to act as first responders in all kind of situations, even ones that save lives.