Police prepare to deploy drone program in Bethesda—as crime drops

County officials tout effectiveness of tool during Wednesday night town hall meeting

July 18, 2024 3:40 p.m.

Editor’s note: This article, published at 11:40 a.m. on July 18, 2024, was updated at 12:32 p.m. on July 18, 2024, to add information about when the drone program will launch in Bethesda.

As the Montgomery County police department prepares to expand its drone program into downtown Bethesda, crime in the community is decreasing, according to authorities.

More than a dozen residents attended a town hall meeting Wednesday night to hear from police about how the Drone as First Responder program will work in the community. During the meeting, Commander Amy Daum of the police department’s District 2, which includes Bethesda, addressed the perception among county residents that crime is “very, very high” in the Bethesda area.

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“When we compare the last quarter of 2024 to the last quarter of crime in 2023 – so same time, same time comparison – crime across all matrices is down about 18% in Bethesda. That’s incredible,” she said.

Daum said advocacy from the community, the Bethesda Chamber of Commerce and the villages and towns within her district helped lead to the expansion of the department’s drone program into Bethesda. Currently, the program operates in the Wheaton and downtown Silver Spring areas.

County police are hoping to launch the drone program in Bethesda by the end of August, according to Police Public Information Officer Carlos Cortes.

According to police, the drones will cover a 1.2-nautical mile radius over the central business district up to the National Institutes of Health and Walter Reed Medical Center on Route 355 and including Friendship Heights, Somerset, Chevy Chase, and the Wisconsin Avenue and Connecticut Avenue corridors.

A map of the coverage area that Bethesda’s Drone as First Responder program will reach.

Drones will be deployed after a 911 call if the dispatcher and drone pilot believe there is a use for the drone to respond, police said. Once the drone arrives on the scene, the pilot can assess if threats are credible, if more emergency responders are needed, and other details that could help expedite emergency response.

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County Executive Marc Elrich told those attending the meeting that the drone program “really [has] made a difference for us.”

Elrich said the county also plans to expand the program to the city of Gaithersburg next. Police officials did not share details about when the program would be introduced to Gaithersburg.

“We want to set the impression that this is going to be an unwelcome place for people who are coming here to disturb what we’re trying to build here,” Elrich said.

Before the meeting began, police Chief Marc Yamada also touted the success of the drone program. He told MoCo360 that the main goal of the program is to “get information to the officer quicker and more information that allows the officer to … make the best decision possible.

“The other piece of this is we can sometimes get overtop and make an assessment that this isn’t a necessary police-driven call. This should be directed toward health and human services, homeless advocacy groups, something like that,” Yamada said. “So we divert the calls to another agency, freeing the officers up, and then what that does is help with our staffing issues, not occupying resources and putting them in places that we need them more.”

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Council President Friedson (D-Dist. 1) also attended the meeting and shared his excitement about bringing the program to the Bethesda area with residents.

“[The drone program] is an example of how we’re leveraging technology and we’re leveraging the best resources that we have to improve upon the hard-working men and women who serve our communities to keep us safe each and every day,” Friedson said.

During the town hall, one Bethesda resident thanked the county police for bringing the program to the area and asked about the extent to which the recordings from the drone’s camera could be used to “apprehend criminals” and for prosecution.

MCPS Special Operations Division head and 3rd District Commander Jason Cokinos said the drone program had already helped police in three Silver Spring cases where the video was put into evidence in connection to “criminal events.”

“We capture the video consistent to body cameras or police car cameras. It’s treated with the same chain of custody and it gets entered in as evidentiary video,” he said, noting that the State’s Attorney’s Office would also review the footage as well.

Another person at the town hall asked about the limitations of using drones during bad weather, such as storms and high winds.

“We can fly in mist and we can fly in some light snow and stuff. But if it’s a violent storm like some of the storms we’ve seen recently, the drone is not going to be able to fly in that way,” Cokinos said.

Drone landing pad in Silver Spring.

He noted that the drones are treated as if they are helicopters and follow Federal Aviation Administration rules that allow flights if clouds are more than 500 feet above the drone’s flight path and if wind gusts are less than 30 mph.

Another limitation of the drones, according to Cokinos, is they currently are only operational for 40 hours a week. He said the department has received requests to extend the program to operate 24 hours a day and seven days a week.

“There is a cost associated with the program. So, for this fiscal year in Bethesda – and I was just talking to the county executive before we started – at the police department we’re actively looking to reduce the cost of the program to the taxpayer, in hopes that we can expand the hours and service times,” Cokinos said.

After the town hall session, Richard Hoye, a retired firefighter who lives in downtown Bethesda, shared his skepticism about the program.

“I think it’s useful in appropriate situations, appropriately applied. That is why I believe that the police department is not looking at analyzing the range of options, solutions, and approaches to police work that would achieve its goals that it has designated with the drone program,” Hoye said.

“It’s a sexy tool and it’s only one tool. And we have to be able to use a variety of tools and approaches to firefighting or to police work,” he said.

Before the program launches in Bethesda, police said they have to secure the operation on the rooftop of one of the downtown area’s high-rise buildings. The drone operator – a police department contractor – is required to have the drone always stay within their line of sight.

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