Infrared Drones Providing Major Advantage To Deputies In Creek County

The Creek County Sheriff's Office says since deploying two infrared drones in July, they’ve used them more than 40 times.

Deputies even used the drones to help find a teenage stabbing suspect last week.

"When they brought it up, I was like I want to do that of course," said Creek County Sheriff’s Deputy Menter Kalevick. 

Deputy Menter Kalevick was flying the drone last week when Creek County Sheriff's Deputies were searching for a teenage stabbing suspect.   

Deputy Kalevick could see the suspect's heat signature on the screen and pointed deputies on the ground to his location.

“There's not enough detail to tell exactly what that thing is so sending a ground unit to confirm is what we normally do,” said Kalevick.

Deputy Kalevick says he always flies with an observer so he can stay focused on the screen.

He says the cameras can't see through buildings but do have infrared technology to detect heat.

"You can be flying with visible and not see something and kick on that infrared and bright as day that infrared is going to see that heat difference just as well as it would at night,” said Kalevick.

Deputies have used the drones to help find missing people, locate suspects, and even to communicate with barricaded subjects.

They’ve even helped neighboring departments reconstruct accident scenes.

“Instead of going up there or using the vehicle to command it we flew the UAS over the house and did commands through the audio system," said Kalevick. 

The Creek County Sheriff's Office has two drones and two licensed drone operators.                

They also say every single flight is logged and recorded.

"It gives us another tool to help locate someone who is running away from us or maybe even someone who is lost and it helps to have a drone program in our county,” said Chief Deputy Fred Clark.

Creek County is hilly which gives suspects plenty of places to hide and while K-9 Units are on the ground searching, the drone can have their backs.

"It gives them peace of mind because the dog is focused on that and the handler is focused on the dog so even having that drone above them gives them additional security around them,” said Kalevick.

The teenage stabbing suspect was handed over to Muscogee Nation Lighthorse Police because the victim is tribal and it happened on tribal land.

The victim is expected to be okay.