{"id":24088,"date":"2025-01-09T00:33:51","date_gmt":"2025-01-09T07:33:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/cortez-police-department-has-an-eye-in-the-sky-once-again\/"},"modified":"2026-03-30T22:48:07","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T04:48:07","slug":"cortez-police-department-has-an-eye-in-the-sky-once-again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/cortez-police-department-has-an-eye-in-the-sky-once-again\/","title":{"rendered":"Cortez Police Department has an \u2018eye in the sky\u2019 once again"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"A
A Cortez Police squad car with a drone flying beside it. (Photo from CrimeWatch)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

The Cortez Police Department recently replaced its drone after the previous one crashed itself during a training flight sometime early last year.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe program itself did not go away, it just has been slow to grow,\u201d said Tyler Smith, the pilot in the drone program, in an email.<\/p>\n

The program is now equipped with \u201ca new, more advanced drone\u201d with \u201call the capabilities we need for law enforcement and rescue missions,\u201d the department shared on a CrimeWatch post Dec. 20.<\/p>\n

Though, at present, the program is made up of just one drone and the one certified pilot to fly it, the department is pursuing grants to help pay for the growing program, Smith said.<\/p>\n

The drone program has been evolving \u2013 in Smith\u2019s words, \u201cslowly\u201d \u2013 for the past few years, and the plan is to keep it growing, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe goal would be to have a handful of pilots, each with their own drone, so they can deploy quickly to where they are needed,\u201d Smith said.<\/p>\n

He went on to say that the program \u201cadds a whole new dimension to the department.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAn eye in the sky can make us much more effective in locating people and keeping the community safe,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s effective, then, in a variety of missions, like locating missing people, hostage situations, more safely evaluating potential explosives and more.<\/p>\n

Smith wanted \u201cto clarify\u201d some \u201ccommon concerns.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOur drones are not for random surveillance,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

All missions have a purpose, even training flights. Plus, the drone can\u2019t \u201csee through walls or anything of the sort.\u201d Instead, its thermal camera sensors \u201cpick up only surface temperatures,\u201d Smith said.<\/p>\n

\"A
A thermal image captured from the Cortez Police Department\u2019s new drone on Dec. 11 after a vehicle and deer collided near Hawkins Preserve. (Photo from CrimeWatch)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

program recently returned<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":24089,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[28,29],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-24088","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-headlines","tag-newsletter"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24088","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24088"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24088\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":78395,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24088\/revisions\/78395"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24089"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24088"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24088"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24088"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=24088"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}