Police called after flying in my own backyard

[mikemoose55]

My job is occasionally pretty gruesome dealing with suicides and suicidal people, I had just finished one very messy ‘ job’ and was called to another who hadn’t yet carried it out.
She, (it’s usually a he), was only 14 and in a very remote location near the railway (hence why I’m called choo choo). There were considerable police resources tied up trying to locate her, and considerable danger to the officers who are not railway trained, to be on or near a live railway. I had my personal drone with me, just in case I had some ‘down-time’ later. And asked the officers if they’d like me to get her up and use her as an aerial platform.
At 400ft (we still use feet, miles and ounces) in the U.K. despite what Europe keep telling us we should do) we could see huge areas which would have taken hours to search.
Happy to say I spotted her within 5 minutes and the officers stood near me directed colleagues to the spot to get her to safety.
The Police officers had never seen a drone before and were fully supportive, they all had a look at the video feed and were amazed at the clarity and the ease of deployment.

It saved massive police resources trying to search such a remote spot, found the young lady very quickly and we didn’t have to mobilise the force helicopter either, quickly bringing the incident to a happy conclusion.
The Police were very impressed and could see the benefits of using a drone. Like anything, it can be used for good or bad, unfortunately nobody likes to read about good news stories, it doesn’t sell papers.

Chalk up one for the good guys, cheers
mikemoose55

 

[Jack Daw]

Wow....

“Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.”

― George Carlin

Actually, as long as we're talking about stupid, half of them would be stupider than the median, not the average.

 

[Drone_guy]

Actually, as long as we're talking about stupid, half of them would be stupider than the median, not the average.

LOL...you might want to take that up with George.

 

[choo choo]

LOL...you might want to take that up with George.

I’ve heard that he’s the devils ‘right hand man’ now.

 

[choo choo]

I wouldn't want your job.but glad you and your drone had a happy outcome here in this incident

Thanks, it gets a bit tedious when I have to get the rib cage shears out to cut the bones when they are impaled on the coupling.
Or as happened one afternoon, a dog ran away with an arm, I gave chase and followed it to a nearby house. I had a bit of explaining to do to the occupier as to why I was chasing their dog round the yard trying to get a severed arm out of its mouth. But there ya go, every days a school day.

 

[ROBERTNCREST]

F.Y.I. I don't know about the UK but in the US you have the right to face your accuser. When to Cops showed up at my door,(non drone related), I asked who called you, and they had to tell me. I got to know my new neighbors better that day.

 

[choo choo]

F.Y.I. I don't know about the UK but in the US you have the right to face your accuser. When to Cops showed up at my door,(non drone related), I asked who called you, and they had to tell me. I got to know my new neighbors better that day.

Sadly in the U.K. we don’t have that privilege.

 

[Popster]

I think generally people overestimate what a drone camera can see/zoom in on and that causes them to worry about the sort of footage the drone operator might be obtaining, when in reality a consumer drone is generally not going to take invasive video or photos unless it is super close to the subject (to the point where it is likely flying illegally). Unfortunately, given the general person wouldn't know this, I can understand why some people might be concerned especially near a preschool. It sounds like it all worked out in the end and you handled yourself very well

Can't really blame the police or pre-school either. Sounds like they handled themselves well and know you're not a weirdo now

 

[erkme73]

A member of my local department stumbled upon me taking pictures of a church at night, I had
my car parked with the headlights on the building to reduce shadows from trees. We spent about 30 minutes talking about the drone and what it could do.

I also went down to an event the cops were doing this summer and shot some pictures and gave the pictures for them to use for publicity.

While I was there we were discussing the application of drones in law enforcement and how several departments near us in Southern NH were getting Officer Part 107 licensed and had bought drones for peeking around where they could not get to easily.

I told them I would be happy to help them in any way I could should they ever wanted to explore the 107 route .View attachment 51066

This is one of those slippery slope things. Where I used to live in central FL, law enforcement was not allowed to peak over privacy fences without reasonable suspicion. Same when flying their helos. Patrolling above private properties to look for criminal activity at random was inadmissible. They had strict guidelines to not use either approach for general crime monitoring.

Drones, of course, make the application of aerial surveillance and dragnet-style searches significantly easier, economical, and quite frankly, more subject to abuse.

I'm all for equipping LEOs with the necessary tools to help fight and deter crime. But I'm also not naive enough to think equipping departments with drones won't end up in some pretty egregious violations of civilian privacy protections.

 

[Paul WIngfield]

I think you handled that well. I fly out of my own backyard all the time and I live in a crowded suburban neighborhood. So far I've had no complaints. (Knock on wood.) I have to fly over my neighbor's houses to get to the nearby park & lake, so I fly high, fast, and try not to stop over anyone's home.

A few of my neighbors, whom I'm friends with, know I have the drone and occasionally will comment that "they saw it whiz overhead a few days ago" and smile with a hint of "I want one" (the men), or roll-their-eyes with a hint of "You can't have one!" (the women).

* I DID once have a neighborhood wife tell me at a late-night block party, "If i ever see that thing flying over my house, I'm going to shoot it down."

I just smiled casually and said to her, "Well you can do whatever you want, Mrs. Pang, but remember that discharging a fire-arm in the city limits is a Class C Felony in this state. Personally, I try not to commit felonies when I know I'm in front of a 4K video camera, but that's me." I kept smiling so it wasn't taken with any offense.

That shut her up.

Just out of curiosity, why did you choose to decline to show your footage to the officers? I think I would have at least shown them a clip from my iPad, so they could see exactly what I was doing. I bet if they saw first hand the innocence of our hobby, that they'd be more likely to care less (and respond less) to phone calls about drones in your area.

I agree with not showing the footage.
The more time the police have to waste trying to prosecute us for ridiculously trumped-up offences the better. They will eventually tire of it and leave us alone as more people realise that it's not the dangerous mischief making hobby they thought it was.

 

[offtheback]

Wow....

“Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.”

― George Carlin

HA!

 

[Mavic Onbekommerd]

Actually, as long as we're talking about stupid, half of them would be stupider than the median, not the average.

You are of course correct, but as ‘stupidity’ conforms pretty close to a normal distribution (or so I am lead to believe), it does not make a big difference. (With apologies for sounding pedantic)

 

[FMR]

Laws obviously differ in various parts of the World in mine zero flying in ones neighborhood.
Yep I'm fine with that.
Seriously who needs the hassle of police knocking at your door asking questions *

 

[Bledsoe1qb]

Wow....

“Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.”

― George Carlin

I love that saying might have to use it!!

 

[D Hansel]

A few weeks ago my new mavic pro ND filters arrived so i thought i would try them out with a quick flight in my backyard. I never flew outside my property fence line and only max alt 25 Metres. One hour later two police arrive and say someone complained about my drone and also his bodycam was filming me. I explained I was allowed to fly in my own yard , not in a No fly zone and by law could go up to 120 M but i only flew at 20M. They wanted to see my footage but i declined. They took my details , also asked me if I was aware a preschool was nearby , so its likely a staff member assumed i was filming kids and called the police. It stressed me out for a day . Police emailed the next day saying I had nothing to worry about.

Most of the 'general public' are a bunch of idiots. That is they see too much news that is slanted one way or another.
I got a call one time from someone saying my ham radio was interfering with their TV.
I am FCC compliant with filters as required. I ask them if they were licensed to listen to me.
At that time they hung up.
Another time I got an anonymous call from some old guy saying I was interfering with his black & white TV. I told him I had been working long hours and hadn't been on my radio in 8 months.
I ask if he was getting the interference now. He said yes. I told him It must be a CB radio operator in his area.
We need to have a 'statement of compliance' to show people when they come up to us half-cocked not knowing what's going on.
Too many busybodies.

 

[Flynz]

I fly from home and have never had a problem. Platinum so quiet and stay high. However had a play with sports mode at 10 metres above my beach house and a neighbour told me not to fly over their house. Fair enough. I now don’t. Go the other way.

 

[Balushi]

I think you handled that well. I fly out of my own backyard all the time and I live in a crowded suburban neighborhood. So far I've had no complaints. (Knock on wood.) I have to fly over my neighbor's houses to get to the nearby park & lake, so I fly high, fast, and try not to stop over anyone's home.

A few of my neighbors, whom I'm friends with, know I have the drone and occasionally will comment that "they saw it whiz overhead a few days ago" and smile with a hint of "I want one" (the men), or roll-their-eyes with a hint of "You can't have one!" (the women).

* I DID once have a neighborhood wife tell me at a late-night block party, "If i ever see that thing flying over my house, I'm going to shoot it down."

I just smiled casually and said to her, "Well you can do whatever you want, Mrs. Pang, but remember that discharging a fire-arm in the city limits is a Class C Felony in this state. Personally, I try not to commit felonies when I know I'm in front of a 4K video camera, but that's me." I kept smiling so it wasn't taken with any offense.

That shut her up.

Just out of curiosity, why did you choose to decline to show your footage to the officers? I think I would have at least shown them a clip from my iPad, so they could see exactly what I was doing. I bet if they saw first hand the innocence of our hobby, that they'd be more likely to care less (and respond less) to phone calls about drones in your area.

Remember their job is to catch criminals not help the community. So you never give up information to the police Or allow them to engage in a search and seizure which that would have been.

 

[Bigbird48]

I'm still confused about flying over sports stadiums I understand and completely agree not to fly over one when an event was going on. But I see no harm flying over and taking pictures if the place is empty. Plus Them putting it on there website that all airspace over their stadium is off limits. I don't think they have that right to restrict air space since the FAA governs the airspace.Some people here have said if they don't want you nto fly there then don't piss them oof.Well what about no pissing me off when its my right to fly there?

 

[hoggdoc]

Well, maybe he was worried that an OSHA violation would be spotted and his job site sited for the violation.

Exactly, Caltrans workers are the worst bunch of government hacks...

 

[cayrick]

I think you handled that well. I fly out of my own backyard all the time and I live in a crowded suburban neighborhood. So far I've had no complaints. (Knock on wood.) I have to fly over my neighbor's houses to get to the nearby park & lake, so I fly high, fast, and try not to stop over anyone's home.

A few of my neighbors, whom I'm friends with, know I have the drone and occasionally will comment that "they saw it whiz overhead a few days ago" and smile with a hint of "I want one" (the men), or roll-their-eyes with a hint of "You can't have one!" (the women).

* I DID once have a neighborhood wife tell me at a late-night block party, "If i ever see that thing flying over my house, I'm going to shoot it down."

I just smiled casually and said to her, "Well you can do whatever you want, Mrs. Pang, but remember that discharging a fire-arm in the city limits is a Class C Felony in this state. Personally, I try not to commit felonies when I know I'm in front of a 4K video camera, but that's me." I kept smiling so it wasn't taken with any offense.

That shut her up.

Just out of curiosity, why did you choose to decline to show your footage to the officers? I think I would have at least shown them a clip from my iPad, so they could see exactly what I was doing. I bet if they saw first hand the innocence of our hobby, that they'd be more likely to care less (and respond less) to phone calls about drones in your area.

The world is full of Napoleon wannabes and troublemakers. Unfortunately that is the world we live in today.