Monroe deputies tried to use drone in search for suspect. It got ‘persnickety,’ official says
.jpg "The Monroe County Sheriff’s Office tried a few techniques to arrest a man who allegedly fled from a traffic stop.")
Law enforcement tried to deploy a drone Friday to find a suspect allegedly fleeing after a chase, but soggy weather interfered with its flight in Forsyth.
Monroe County Sheriff’s Office deputies said they tried to pull over a vehicle for traffic violations but the driver “refused to stop, resulting in a pursuit,” Anna Watkins, the agency’s public information officer, said in a news release.
The chase began around 2:30 a.m. on Interstate 75 Southbound near Exit 186 and Tift College. The driver crashed five exits south near Rumble Road, according to Watkins.
When the driver abandoned the vehicle and ran, deputies tried to find him with a drone, but its flight didn’t last long.
“The drone was unable to remain airborne” and they flew it back down, Watkins said.
“When it’s rainy, snowy, cold, (the drone) can get a little persnickety,” she told The Telegraph.
The drone was unarmed and equipped with a camera.
“It basically just takes pictures of the area, and it flies where they can see if there’s any movement and all like that,” Watkins said. “It’s not to hunt them down or anything like that, like it is, in a way, but not in a way.”
A K-9 eventually found the suspect, and he was arrested without incident, according to the news release.
The 24-year-old Tift County man was booked in the Monroe County Jail without bond, the sheriff’s office said. He was charged with felony fleeing, two counts of obstruction of an officer and multiple traffic violations. He was also being held with a probation violation from Tift County.
Still, Watkins said the drones are “pretty cool” and “have come a long way.”
