Hutto, a small town in Texas, is proving that Big Brother is always watching. Thanks to the use of a savvy drone program, local law enforcement managed to nab a suspect on the lam, all caught on camera for the world to see. In a video released by the Hutto police, an underage fugitive who tried to make a break for it ended up in cuffs after the department's drone located him hiding out in the greenery.
Police Chief Jeffrey Yarbrough and Mayor Mike Snyder took to the airwaves to show off their new tech tool. "He saw the vehicles coming down the street, but he didn't see the drone," Yarbrough said in a statement obtained by Fox 7 Austin. The suspect made a run for it, ducking through backyards and jumping fences before being outsmarted by the drone's thermal imaging tech. The hot pursuit ended with the suspect surrendering peacefully as officers closed in.
This isn't Hutto PD's first rodeo with the drone – their program started only in October of last year. Since then, they've clocked about 10 successful operations, ranging from tracking down suspects to locating missing persons. According to a report by DroneXL.co, the agile equipment can be airborne in under a minute, giving officers a decisive upper hand. "With officers on foot, he probably would have been successful had it not been for the drone being able to detect this thermal heat signature," Yarbrough said.
The drone program doesn't just provide a bird's-eye view – it also comes with the perk of assessing danger from a distance. In the recent takedown, authorities could see that the suspect was unarmed, allowing them to approach with less lethal force. "We could tell the suspect wasn't armed, so they only went in with a taser," Yarbrough told Fox 7 Austin.
Mayor Snyder is all in, touting the success of the drone as a crime deterrent. "I'd rather have the criminals not even come to Hutto than to come to Hutto for us to catch them," he told DroneXL.co.
