Nation's Police Departments to Share One Drone, Mailed State to State on a Rotating Schedule
With Chinese models restricted and domestic ones too pricey, law enforcement agencies have settled on a single shared unit that spends most of its time in transit.
Departments that once fielded their own aerial units will now take turns with one drone, currently somewhere in a cardboard box between Ohio and Nebraska according to tracking information posted on a shared spreadsheet.
A scheduling committee has been formed to manage requests, though it has so far spent most of its first two meetings debating whether a department can keep the drone an extra day if a pursuit runs long.
"We get it on the ninth of next month, assuming the post office doesn't lose it again," said a spokesperson for one department, who added that officers have resumed training with binoculars in the meantime.
Some precincts have begun building wooden replicas of the drone to practice landing procedures, since the real one is rarely in the building long enough to use for drills.
The committee says it is exploring whether a second drone could be added to the rotation, but notes that doing so would require an entirely new spreadsheet.