Police Drone Helps Reduce Crime by 10% in Mexican City

Police in Ensenada, Mexico say that the use of a small “quadcopter drone” has led to a 10% drop in overall crime rates, with a 30% drop in home robberies, according to WIRED .

Jesus Ramos Avendaño, CTO of the Ensenada police force, said, “It’s helped with reducing response times and also catching people when they do something illegal.”

During a four-month period, the Ensenada Police Department flew more than 1,600 missions (an average of roughly 25 missions a day), resulting in more than 500 arrests. The department based its mission assignments on the geographical location of 911 calls, enabling them to target the most problematic areas.

Unmanned Aerial Systems (UASs) in the United States have not yet been tasked with widespread surveillance missions such as the experiment recently done in Ensenada, but UASs have been successfully used in tactical situations such as barricaded gunmen as well as search and rescue operations and other life-saving applications.