A driver suspected of traveling the wrong way on Interstate 76 slammed head-on into multiple vehicles Saturday before abandoning his car and sprinting into a nearby field, according to Commerce City police. Officers didn’t need a high-speed chase to catch him. They used a drone.
The Commerce City Police Department says its Real-Time Crime Center launched a drone remotely from police headquarters once word of the wrong-way crash came in, relying on infrared imaging to pick up the fleeing suspect’s heat signature in the field. Drone operators then guided ground officers directly to his location, and he was taken into custody, according to a Commerce City Police Department Facebook post. The department credited the capture to the combination of traditional policing and technology, per the same post.
How the Drone as First Responder Program Works
The capture is the latest demonstration of Commerce City’s Drone as First Responder, or DFR, program, which officially launched in May 2025 and operates under Federal Aviation Administration approval for beyond-visual-line-of-sight flights from the city’s Real-Time Crime Center. Deployments are restricted to active 911 calls or alerts from Flock Safety automated license plate readers, not routine surveillance, according to the Commerce City government’s announcement of the program’s rollout. Police Chief Darrel Guadnola emphasized community transparency when the program debuted.
Hoodline previously reported on the department’s drone locating a knife attack suspect hiding under a tarp back in February.
A Pattern Along the Same Highway Corridor
This isn’t the first time the drone program has intervened on I-76 specifically. In June, Commerce City police used the same remote drone system during a road rage call on the highway to track a felony menacing suspect who had allegedly pointed a firearm at another vehicle, guiding neighboring Brighton police to a traffic stop without launching a vehicle pursuit, according to the department’s Facebook account. In August, Chief Guadnola announced an expansion of the department’s public safety technology, adding more drone capacity, additional gunshot detection sensors, and expanded license plate camera coverage citywide, continuing to integrate drone feeds with the Real-Time Crime Center…