Drone used to catch suspects in chase

YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio (WKBN) — When city patrolman Dylan Bell heard the call for a chase early Tuesday morning on the North Side, he started to head that way from his South Side beat in case he was needed to help out.

What Bell didn’t know at the time was not only would he end up helping out, he would be using one of the department’s drones for the first time in a situation where a crime was in progress.

The drone was able to track two people who abandoned a stolen Mercedes that led police on a chase to Hubbard.

Bell, who has been on the department for two and a half years and patrols a South Side beat, said he became a drone operator after he was asked by Lt. Brian Welsh, who heads up the program.

“It’s something that’s going to bring the police department into the future,” Bell said.

The department has had drones for a little over a year and is now deploying two after extensive training.

Bell said he took an online course that lasted about a month, then took an exam.

Once he passed the exam, he received a license from the FAA, and since then he has practiced extensively with them.

Welsh said the department has seven drones they use for practice and two that are actually deployed. Bell said the goal is to have at least one drone available per shift and he is the only drone operator on midnight turn.

This is what he was working on Tuesday morning when the chase call went out on the radio at about 1:30 a.m. after officers tried to pull over the Mercedes and Saranac and Wick avenues because a registration found that it was stolen but it refused to stop.

The Mercedes led police through Liberty to East Park Avenue in Hubbard, where it crashed into the front porch of a home and the people inside got out and began running away.

The driver of the Mercedes was taken into custody but three other people ran away towards Mud Run Creek and Bell was called to help find them.

Bell said he searched for the people in the darkness by looking for their “heat signatures” through the drone’s cameras, or the body heat they would be giving off. After no more than 10 minutes, two of them were located at East Park Avenue and Jones Street SE and taken into custody.

A fourth person was taken into custody at East Liberty and South Main Streets.

The driver of the car was booked into the Mahoning County Juvenile Justice Center while the other three people were questioned and released.

Previously, before the police department’s drones were operational, they often used a drone that belonged to the Mahoning County Sheriff’s Office.

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