by Liz Mullen
The Hermosa Beach Police Department has been using drones for about five years in police work, including tracking down suspects, giving officers real-time views of illegal activity, and even finding missing persons.
Now, HBPD is conducting a pilot program using its drone at different times of the day and night and different days of the week to gather data on how to best deploy the technology. It started about two weeks ago with the drone being used on weekend nights, according to HBPD Sgt. J.R. Smith.
For the next two weeks, the drone will surveil the city during the day in the middle of the week. The pilot program is expected to take a few months to complete. “It’s basically to refine our drone deployment — to make sure we are using it as efficiently as possible as far as hours of the day to deploy it and which days of the week to deploy it,” Smith said.
That’s important as far as staffing goes. Officers must have an unmanned aircraft license from the Federal Aviation Administration in order to operate the drone.
HBPD currently has eight licensed officers. Smith was one of the first to get licensed in April 2021.
“There is a 40-hour school that you go to, and you have to take a practical test, and you have to go to an airport to take an FAA-approved test,” Smith said.
Five more HBPD officers are in the process of getting ready to take the test.
“We work different shifts — day shift, graveyard shift, during the week, during the weekends,” Smith said. “To have enough officers to do this, you have to have quite a few officers (with FAA licenses),” he said.
HBPD started with two small drones, and upgraded to a larger, higher-tech Matrice 30 about a year ago. “It has a lot more capabilities as far as flight times, camera quality and night vision,” Smith said.
Footage from the drone can be used in court, although that has not happened yet. The drone flies at about 400 feet and HBPD has used it in many different situations.
“A lot of the time it’s just used for overwatch, basically like a backup officer.” Smith said. “You are over top of–let’s just say it’s a traffic stop–you are viewing everything that is going on,” Smith said.
But the majority of the time the drone has been used for higher profile, more important or more potentially dangerous situations.
HBPD used the drone during a tragic incident on Christmas Eve, 2023, when a man barricaded himself inside his home and it caught fire.
HBPD has also used it in other cities to search for a suspect. They recently used it in Downey when HBPD detectives arrested a man there for burglarizing four vehicles in Hermosa earlier this year.
HBPD has also had success in using the drone to locate missing persons, including a seven year-old boy who wandered away from his parents on the beach.
“It improves the department’s access to real time information,” Smith said. “It helps officers make informed decisions. They can evaluate active incidents through the drone because it’s actually live-streamed to officers’ cell phones so they can see what the drone is seeing.”
Unlike police helicopters, the drone does not make a lot of noise and there hasn’t been one accident. “We are operating with no crashes so far,” Smith said.
MBPD uses drone to search for burglar
The Manhattan Beach Police Department used a drone to attempt to apprehend a residential burglar fleeing a residence earlier this month, but the suspect got away.
On April 15, a sleeping resident woke up when the burglar opened the sliding glass door—which was unlocked—on a ground floor apartment at 1300 Park View. The resident yelled at the burglar, who ran away. MBPD officers responded and a drone was deployed but the suspect was not located.
MBPD officers did arrest a suspect after a quarter-mile foot chase that ended in El Segundo on April 15. MBPD responded to a call about a theft on the 2700 block of Sepulveda Boulevard at about 2 p.m. that day.
They located the suspect near the corner of Rosecrans Avenue and Redondo Avenue. But the suspect ignored officers’ commands and fled on foot. The suspect was ultimately arrested without incident in El Segundo.
MBPD arrested another suspect who entered the city in a stolen vehicle on April 13. MBPD was alerted that the vehicle had entered the city at about 4:52 p.m. and conducted a high risk traffic stop on the 300 block of Rosecrans Avenue. The suspect was arrested and booked into the MBPD jail.
Thieves break into trucks, lockers in Redondo
Thieves have been stealing tools out of trucks and cars and breaking into lockers to take phones and credit cards in Redondo Beach in recent weeks.
On April 7, a loss prevention employee at a store on the 1500 block of Hawthorne Boulevard stopped a 35- to 40-year-old woman who had left a store without paying for two pairs of shoes and two clothing items she had placed in a shopping bag. The loss prevention employee grabbed the woman’s wrists and the woman flung her arms up in the air, dropping the merchandise, and ran away.
On April 8 on the 2600 block of Nelson Avenue, burglars smashed the rear passenger side window of a Toyota Tacoma pickup truck and got away with a Milwaukee drill, a Sawzall reciprocating saw, various other tools and a toolbag.
On April 3 on the 1000 block of Catalina Avenue, a suspect smashed the side triangle window on the passenger side, entered the vehicle and took multiple tools, including two impact tools, two electric drills, a bandsaw, an electric hacksaw, and a Sawzall.
On March 31 on the 1900 block of Slauson Lane, burglars broke into a black Ford F-150 pickup truck and stole a sewer and drain cleaner snake as well as cables and locks.
There were two break-ins at two secured lockers at a business on the 800 block of North Harbor Drive on March 29. In one case, the thief stole an iPhone 13 and two credit cards.
In the second case, the thief got away with an iPhone Pro Max, a commercial driver’s license, another identification card, five credit and debit cards and cash. ER
