As Modesto police Officer Martin Lemus pushed forward the throttle to launch one of his department’s newest unmanned aerial vehicles, also known as drones, it quickly lifted off the ground and within just a couple of seconds ascended to about 250 feet above MPD headquarters.
While it hovered, Lemus turned around the remote control he was using to pilot the drone and showed several people what the DJI Matrice 4T’s capabilities are. Displayed on the remote’s screen was a 4k video of the machine’s birds-eye view of Patterson and the mountains beyond it.
In the foreground of the video stream, was a map overlay of all the streets and highways in its view. This is so officers monitoring a suspect or a suspect’s vehicle don’t lose their sense of direction while flying the drone, Lemus said.
“Let me see if I can find a group of people real quick, so that you can appreciate the good quality of video to be able to put out a description of a suspect,” the officer said…