Police using latest tech along with helicopters
Helicopters are among the most versatile flying machines in existence. Naturally enough, this makes them useful for many diverse tasks, especially among police.
Cops have used choppers for aerial rescue operations, traffic surveillance, disaster monitoring and of course, for chasing down criminal suspects. In this last category, some departments have utilized rather interesting technologies for making their job even easier against hapless thieves.
A recent case of exactly this happened in Brockton Massachusetts when the State Police managed to effectively track several suspects who had stolen a car. The officers did this by using thermal camera imaging to keep the crooks firmly in sight.
Helicopter Thermal Imaging video
You can see for yourself just how the whole pursuit worked out. The state troopers happened to share their video of the incident on the Massachusetts State Police Facebook page.
For a quick rundown: A helicopter with the MSP Air Wing Unit was pinged with a LoJack Stolen Vehicle Recovery System notice as it happened to be flying over the town of Brockton on Thursday, December 23. According to the State Police, this prompted an immediate search for the signal source by the chopper’s crew, Sgt. Gregg Spooner and Trooper Joshua Pacheco.
With little delay in this small city of just over 100,000 inhabitants, the helicopter found the vehicle in question, an unidentified four door sedan-type car. MSP ground patrol cars then also gave chase.
As soon as they noticed, the suspects in the car tried to escape at high speed and even managed to evade the patrol cars in pursuit by fleeing across several communities. This largely because the MSP police called off their street-level pursuit due to worries about harming civilian drivers and pedestrians .
Massachusetts State Police catch car thieves
Soon afterwards, the five suspects parked their car close to the DW Field Parkway, jumped out of the vehicle and fled on foot into a nearby forest. The group may have even thought that they’d managed to escape the clutches of the cops.
Photo: Massachusetts State Police
In this however, they were mistaken. Despite the fact that the ground patrol vehicles had pulled back, the MSP helicopter that had first received the LoJack ping had never let off on its aerial observation. Using its onboard Forward-looking infrared (FLIR) thermal camera, Sgt. Spooner and his partner were busy constantly keeping the car in sight as it changed streets.
Even after the group of suspected thieves had high-tailed their way into the woods on foot, the same FLIR camera was used to track them among the trees. By doing this, the chopper cops managed to tell their colleagues on the ground exactly where they could find all five individuals hiding in the forest.
Within little more than 10 minutes of running into the shadows, the hapless group was surprised by the arrival of two patrol cars pulling up on a nearby road.
All in a late night’s work for FLIR-equipped aerial survey helicopters and their police pilots.
Helicopter used for aerial surveillance
Aerial surveying is especially easy for helicopters simply because they can hover or move as slowly as they like at nearly any altitude. This quality is exactly what makes mounting them with FLIR cameras so ideal for police pursuits, wilderness search & rescue operations and environmental monitoring, among other things.
It’s not just police who use helicopters with this technology. Private air charter services like Fair Lifts Helicopter charters also offer their own air survey services with thermal imaging. These are available upon request for environmental services or other imaging needs.