2020 Police Department Annual Report

SMALL UNMANNED AIRCRAFT SYSTEM

In 2016, The Orland Park Police Department (OPPD) became the first municipal police department in Illinois to receive Federal Aviation Administration (F.A.A.) authorization to operate a small unmanned aircraft system (sUAS) in national airspace for law enforcement operations. The Department now has fifteen (15) F.A.A. licensed sUAS pilots who work all shifts and are capable of flying the drones at any time, day or night. In 2020, these operators gave a virtual presentation to a national audience, about the OPPD sUAS program, at the request of the F.A.A. from 2019. In these deployments,OPPD sUAS operators located a suicidal subject, a driver who fled a hit and run vehicle crash, and a missing two year-old child. They also assisted other agencies in locating fleeing suspects and one call in which a subject was armed with an AR-15 rifle in a stolen vehicle. The OPPD had (38) drone deployments in 2020 which reflects a twenty-seven (27) percent increase

54| POLICE ANNUAL REPORT

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