MANSFIELD — ShotSpotter detects gunshots somewhere in Mansfield at 2 a.m. Police officers in cruisers race across town, responding even before 9-1-1 calls come in.
A license-plate reading camera in the area captures a vehicle speeding away from the scene, perhaps capturing the suspect’s fleeing vehicle.
A camera drone flies from a box atop the nine-story Municipal Building and hovers above the shooting scene, providing live overwatch even before officers and paramedics arrive.
By the end of the year, all three of those technologies will be in place in Mansfield for the aforementioned, fictional scenario.
Former Mansfield police Chief Keith Porch believes in technology as a “force multiplier” when it comes to first responders, employing ShotSpotter and Flock cameras during his tenure in charge of the MPD.
Now the city’s safety service director, Porch said he believes Mansfield safety forces will be the first in Ohio to take advantage of technology developed by a company based in Houston, Texas, to get drones quickly over crime and emergency scenes.
How would a Paladin drone work in the City of Mansfield?
- A 911 call is received.
- The drone is deployed from its home base in a box atop the Municipal Building.
- The drone flies vertically to an altitude of 250 feet and then travels to the call location at around 35 miles per hour, based upon address data entered by dispatchers.
- The drone’s camera angles down to survey the scene.
- The drone provides a live video feed to first responders.
- Afterward, the drone returns to its home base atop the Municipal Building.
The city’s Board of Control on Tuesday approved a $49,000 one-year contract with Paladin, a company founded in 2018 that offers drone technology that is not based on line-of-sight controls.
The cost for the one year “test-and-evaluate” period will be split between the city’s police and fire department budgets.
The former chief said after the meeting it’s the natural next step in the technological advancement process for first responders.
“Absolutely,” he said. “The technology is here.”
“The drone philosophy has always been, ‘When is that day going to come?’ when there’s drones in a box … of essentially having four boxes installed around the jurisdiction of a city where they can deploy and respond as first responders to calls.
“Well, that day is here. It’s been at least a five-year process that we have seen where the technology is advancing to this (stage),” Porch said.
“We would like to test and evaluate to see if ultimately it’s a fit for the City of Mansfield,” he said.
The contract has an option for two one-year renewals and the city can opt out with a 45-day notice.
The drone carries two cameras — one optical, one thermal — and has a service radius of three square miles, which will provide coverage for most of the city from the downtown Municipal Building.
It is built with simplicity in mind, according to Divyaditya Shrivastava, founder and CEO of Paladin.
“A live feed is all it is doing,” he said in an article published in 2021 in GovTech.com.
“It makes a world of difference. Without an overhead view there is only so much information you can give a first responder,” he said.
The drone carries two cameras — one optical, one thermal — and has a service radius of three square miles.
A Paladin drone has three basic commands: take off, stop/pause and return to home base.
Navigation is done via trained first responder professionals working for the particular public agency, with drones being directed by digital maps and by dropping pins onto those maps.
Porch said the drone could be equally valuable to firefighters, giving an overhead view of a potential fire scene even before trucks and rescue squads arrive. The thermal camera may locate fire inside a structure or help to locate a missing person.
In fact, helping firefighters is why Shrivastava got involved in the effort.
He told GovTech.com that he started getting into drones after his neighbor’s house burned down. The family was on vacation and no one was hurt, but the incident sparked his interest in emergency response, and led to conversations with the local fire chief.
“The chief told me that about 70% of the time, first responders have no information — or wildly inaccurate information — about emergencies” as they approach the scene, he said. “That was crazy to me.”
On its website, Paladin cites a 2022 successful test study done in Odessa, Texas, a city of about 120,000 residents on the west side of the state.
The short-handed Odessa Police Department, authorized at 182 officers, was down by almost 20 percent, running 35 officers short.
The Paladin program was a hit with with Odessa police and fire chiefs, based upon the study.
“It arms us with information. Information is power … We have an authorized strength of 182 [officers] and right now we are 35 down … (Paladin) is a force multiplier for us and allows us to do things we wouldn’t normally be allowed to do. It allows us to respond to calls quicker than we would be able to otherwise,” police Chief Michael Gerke said.
Fire Chief John Alvarez agreed.
“Any time we receive a call through the 911 call center, they are always trying to relay information to us. Sometimes we get that information and sometimes we don’t … you always want to find out, ‘OK, so what are we responding to exactly?’
“Being able to have eyes on prior to arrival is going to make a huge difference for us by making better decisions and having a better outcome when responding to incidents,” Alvarez said.
Mansfield has had a pilot-driven drone program since 2018, according to Porch, who said there are seven FAA-certified pilots in the police department. He said the fire department also has two drone pilots.
The director said he would make a presentation to City Council so that local lawmakers would better understand the Paladin program.
“Three square miles, in my opinion, is quite significant when we talk about coverage,” he said.
The “advanced package” approved by the Board of Control includes the drone, docking station, the company’s Watchtower software and assistance with the FAA to obtain waivers needed for “beyond the visual line of sight operation,” according to Porch.
“We will get unlimited users, unlimited data storage, unlimited maintenance, repairs, batteries. Essentially, 100 percent of this project is covered by the company with this subscription model,” he said.
Porch said the contract will be from Jan. 1, 2025, to Dec. 31, 2025. He said, however, Paladin officials have told him it could well be operational in early November.
“Right now it’s the concern of safety involving the police and fire departments,” Porch said.
“I think in the future, it could be a larger (benefit) for public works. (When) we have water main breaks, or any kind of obstructions in the roadways, we can immediately go and clear those calls and see what those issues are.
“At the end of the day, in the big scope of this, when we approach the end of 2025, (we need to ask) is the program worth continuing? Has it worked well?”
