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Scottsdale's 'eyes in the sky' help responding officers fight crime
Scottsdale Police Department's Real Time Crime Center won a national award for its use of technology and drones in their crime response. FOX 10's Taylor Wirtz learns more about the award-winning program.
SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. - The way law enforcement fights crime has come a long way in the past few years.
Local perspective:
The Scottsdale Police Department's Real Time Crime Center just won a national award for the way it uses technology to assess a situation before officers even arrived on scene.
"You were always reliant on that delay, unfortunately, of officers having to get there on scene," said Officer Aaron Bolin of the Scottsdale Police Department.
Once upon a time, help couldn’t arrive until the police officers did, but those days are gone in Scottsdale, thanks to the Real Time Crime Center and Drone as First Responder program.
What we know:
"We are the eyes in the sky. So yes, I have access to over 6,000 camera feeds," said Kathy Steinke, a Scottsdale Police Real Time Crime Center technician.
Those feeds include business and traffic cams, license plate readers, and drones.
"More often than not, the drone is overhead of the crime scene before the patrol officers even get there," said Marcos Hernandez, a Scottsdale Police Real Time Crime Center technician and drone pilot.
Why you should care:
The technology just won the national 2026 Smart Cities Award. Hernandez said the results speak for themselves.
"We've been able to, do things like, catch fleeing suspects, recover stolen vehicles, find missing children. And we even caught a bank robber," Hernandez said.
But an abundance of cameras raises privacy concerns. Steinke said they only watch when necessary.
"We are reactive, not proactive. So somebody has to call because it's a situation for me to then look into the cameras," Steinke said.
"Only once the drone gets above the incident scene, does the camera tilt down so that the drone operator can see what's going on," Hernandez added.
What's next:
Scottsdale Police said this is the future of public safety.
"It really is revolutionizing the way that we’re able to respond to calls in our community and keep our community safer," Bolin said.
The Source: This information was gathered from a technician and drone pilot with Scottsdale PD.