The drone used its license plate reader to identify the suspicious vehicle in the mall parking lot and captured high-definition photos that were sent to authorities on the ground. The suspect was later tracked to Chicago, where he was arrested.
Akilah Townsend
This was the type of outcome that Oak Brook Police Department Chief Brian Straukis hoped for when he pioneered the “drones as first responders” or DFR program in Illinois. A longtime member of the force, he joined the department about 25 years ago as a patrol officer, worked his way up the brass ladder and was awarded the top job in 2022.
Oak Brook was the first municipality in Illinois to deploy drones as first responders. One of the main reasons, Strokis says, was to reduce the number of high-speed pursuits, which are potentially dangerous to officers, suspects and civilians. Strokis says drones are also a more effective and cost-effective way to deal with suspects in fleeing vehicles.
Police say there was the potential for a dangerous high-speed chase. Patrol vehicles rushed towards the spot. But the first unit to arrive was a drone.
“It’s a force multiplier in that we’re able to do more with less,” says the chief, who spoke to me in his office at Oak Brook’s Village Hall.
The department’s drone launches autonomously from the building’s roof and responds to about 10 to 12 service calls per day at a speed of 45 miles per hour. It reaches the crime scene before the patrol officers in nine out of every 10 cases.
Next to Village Hall is the Oak Brook Police Department’s Real-Time Crime Center, a large room with two video walls that integrates livestreams from first-responder drones, handheld drones, traffic cameras, license plate readers and nearly a thousand personal security cameras. When I visited, two DFR operators demonstrated how the machine could fly itself or be guided to locations from a destination entered on Google Maps. They sent it to a nearby forest preserve and then instructed it to return to the rooftop base, where it automatically docked, changed batteries, and charged. After the demo, one of the drone operators logged the flight as required by state law.
Strokis says he is aware of the privacy concerns associated with the use of this technology, but the protections are in place.
For example, drones can’t be used for random or large-scale surveillance, he says, because during flight the camera is always pointed straight ahead and doesn’t pan down until it reaches its desired location. They say the drone’s payload does not include facial recognition technology, which is prohibited by state law.
