Link Ahead with the City of Dublin, Ohio
Link Ahead with the City of Dublin, Ohio
90 Seconds to Safety: Dublin at the Forefront of Emergency Response
Welcome to a fascinating glimpse into the future of public safety happening right now in Dublin. Deputy Chief Greg Lattanzi and Sergeant Andrew Clark join us to reveal how cutting-edge technology is transforming emergency response in our community.
Dublin has emerged as a national leader in technologically-enhanced policing, becoming the first law enforcement agency in the country to partner with both schools and the fire department for drone launch sites. The results are remarkable: drones can now be deployed anywhere in the city within 90 seconds, providing critical real-time information during emergencies. What started as a modest program with seven officers and three drones in 2020 has evolved into a sophisticated network of strategically placed docking stations that serve as force multipliers during major events and everyday emergencies alike.
But the innovations don't stop there. The City is deploying two 400-pound autonomous security robots that patrol the Rock Cress Parking Garage and Riverside Crossing Park around the clock. These highly visible robots, equipped with two-way communication capabilities to 911 dispatch, serve both as crime deterrents and as additional "eyes" in areas. Complementing these technologies are 22 license plate reading cameras strategically placed throughout Dublin, helping officers quickly identify stolen vehicles and individuals with outstanding warrants while providing valuable investigative data when crimes occur.
Behind all this technology stands Dublin's newly formed Business District Unit, focusing specifically on the unique needs of high-density areas like Bridge Park. Using data-driven approaches centered on deploying resources in the "right places, right times and for the right reasons," these specialized officers address everything from traffic concerns to emerging crime patterns.
The most powerful takeaway from our conversation? Technology serves the community, not the other way around. As Deputy Chief Lattanzi reminds us: "You're never bothering us. That's what we're here for. We're dedicated to service, fully engaged in public safety." Tune in to discover how Dublin is leading the way in balancing technological innovation with compassionate, community-focused policing.
Hello and welcome again to Link Ahead the City of Dublin podcast Lindsay. We're going to dive into some high-tech topics today that were just ideas a few years ago, but, as our listeners know, dublin always strives to be at the forefront of technology when it's implemented in effective, efficient and essential ways.
Speaker 2:Right, and we are leveraging cutting-edge public safety technology to support police operations, emergency response, crime prevention and investigative leads. We are talking the latest in self-piloted drones, security robots and new camera technology, and here to talk all about it is Deputy Chief of Police Greg Litanze and Sergeant Andrew Clark. Welcome to Link Ahead.
Speaker 3:Thank you, thanks, lindsay.
Speaker 2:So glad to have you. And before we jump headfirst into high tech, can you give our listeners some background on the technology we already use to keep our city and residents safe? For example people might not know we started our police drone unit in 2020.
Speaker 4:We had seven officers that we trained up as pilots in 2020 and had three drones to start. All those drones we would carry with us in the cruiser and then, when we had a use for it, the officers would get them out of their car and fly them on a call. We used them a lot, used them until the batteries swelled up and we kept having to replace them and realize that this technology is something that is really really beneficial. And I've just built it up from there and now we're up to, I think, 25 officers that are pilots.
Speaker 4:So why are drones so effective? I think drones are effective because they are able to give us an overall picture of what is happening and give us that picture quickly. Sure, you know a lot of. It is like having a helicopter, but a lot less expensive than a helicopter, and it can give you that overview person, a suspect that's fled, or just you know, getting a idea of what the traffic looks like, crowds at an event. It can give you that overall picture from one perspective of the drone, without having to rely on a bunch of different officers to give you that same perspective, and it can do it really, really quickly.
Speaker 2:Can you talk a little bit more about how the technology has changed or improved even in the last five years since we began the program?
Speaker 3:Yeah, lindsay, we can speak a little bit about how that tech has changed. So initially, our drone program started with drones that would have to be manned by one of our trained drone pilots and deployed from a cruiser or another specialty vehicle at the police department. That technology has significantly shifted in the last five years to where the FAA has authorized the use of drones in a way that we can station them and then fly them from beyond visual line of sight for first responders. Additionally, the city has partnered with other companies to explore camera technologies, from license plate reading technology to other stationary cameras throughout the city. That really enhances our ability to deploy resources more quickly and also investigate things more effectively after an incident has happened by the use of those cameras and where they are strategically placed throughout the city.
Speaker 1:Let's talk about that drone as the first responder program that you guys just launched, so we're the first law enforcement agency in the country to partner with schools and the fire department as launch site. That's correct, right.
Speaker 4:Yes, we're the first to partner with both the school district and fire department.
Speaker 2:So how quickly can they respond to an emergency?
Speaker 3:Based on where we have the drones located at throughout the city. Those are in four strategic locations throughout the city. We can deploy a drone and have it overhead of an incident within 90 seconds or less anywhere in the city.
Speaker 2:That is incredible, and Sergeant Clark talked to us about this earlier. But what is the battery life of a typical drone?
Speaker 4:So the battery life of a typical drone is about 35 to 40 minute flight time. So obviously we have to allow for that time to get there and time to get back, plus a little reserve. So we typically have about 25 to maybe 30 minutes on scene of an incident.
Speaker 1:So, Sergeant Clark, you kind of talked about earlier, about a helicopter like that. There's a lot of maintenance and stuff. So you're an airplane pilot and you certainly know how long it takes to get things up in the air and do the safety checks. So what is it about that time that you know the short amount of time that you have with a drone versus, you know, a manned aircraft?
Speaker 4:Absolutely so. The nice thing about drones are you still have to have all those safety checks, but with this drone first responder program they're actually mounted in a climate controlled dock so we can do all those checks, make sure everything is operating as it should be, and then it's in that climate controlled dock. It's powered on, it's ready to go. So those safety checks are done. As long as there's no readings that are off, you can open that thing up. It's good to go Take off and launch it. You don't have to actually have a person there checking it every single time it flies. That's cool.
Speaker 2:And these are really eyes in the sky. Right, that can cover our four counties, franklin, delaware, madison and Union in a matter of minutes.
Speaker 3:That's correct, Lindsay. So we've got authorization from the FAA to fly in all the counties that we have jurisdiction in and again, as we mentioned, because of the location that we have with the drone docking stations, we can deploy those very quickly and have eyes overhead of an incident in a very short amount of time anywhere within our jurisdictions. But we also have authorization to assist other jurisdictions within reason in those counties as well.
Speaker 1:You know you mentioned time. In an incident like that, you know there's an emergency. You need to be there quickly. So how does this improve police response time?
Speaker 4:First and foremost, like Deputy Chief said, we'll have eyes on any incident anywhere in the city within 90 seconds. That's very, very quickly.
Speaker 2:You know you guys drive around here in heavy traffic time it's hard to get anywhere within a few minutes, much less 90 seconds.
Speaker 4:So even though we're in police cars, that's very quick. Second, it can change how we respond to an incident so we have that overall picture. We're able to see what is happening. It can change how our officers respond so we can get officers in the right places faster, rather than having to go and then readjust once we get to the initial incident scene. So it really does improve our response time and the effectiveness of our response.
Speaker 2:Well, and this can really help with our large events.
Speaker 3:right, talk about Independence Day, dublin Irish Festival, the Memorial Tournament, yeah, lindsay, I think a great example of this is our 4th of July concert and fireworks that we just finished up with here. We were able to utilize both our DFR drones, our regularly manned drones, as well as Meraki cameras throughout the city to assist us with the traffic flow on the egress of the 4th of July, and that's something that we have a significantly large crowd all trying to leave a very condensed area all at the same time. So you can imagine the challenges that that's that presents to um, to folks that are leaving, and a law enforcement station throughout the city to try, try to ensure that that traffic pattern uh operates and people get home safely and quickly. So we were able to utilize those drones and Meraki cameras to help us direct officers to run certain traffic lights in certain directions to ensure that that traffic flowed appropriately, given the amount of cars that were on certain roadways to get people back home safely and quickly.
Speaker 1:So all this is happening at night, so how can these cameras see what's going on at night?
Speaker 4:Yeah, so all of the drones are equipped with forward-looking infrared, so they actually have infrared cameras on all of them and it's really effective even in a small package. To see at night.
Speaker 1:Tell us about the usefulness of real-time information you know, coming in during an emergency, such as a missing child, a traffic incident or maybe a crowd that's just gotten out of control.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so I can give you a great example, bruce, of a time that we've used our DFRs in a testing scenario when we had a missing person here in the city, as of late, we were able to fly that drone overhead in conjunction with responding officers and almost immediately locate a missing person and be able to utilize the data and the visuals that we were getting from the DFRs to communicate with officers that were on the scene and direct them to where this missing person was and get them back safely to their loved ones.
Speaker 2:That is an incredible story, and earlier you talked about the use of cameras. So we are using LPR technology license plate readers to enhance public safety and support for criminal investigations. Let's talk a little bit about that. Where are those cameras located?
Speaker 3:Yeah, so we've got 22 fixed license plate reading cameras and an agreement with a company named Flock and those are strategically located throughout the cities I'm sorry, throughout the city and we try to capture those areas most frequented by the motoring public and ingress and egress points to the city.
Speaker 3:And what that allows us to do is, through their software package, to monitor vehicles that enter and exit the city for potential warrants for stolen vehicles, so that information from those license plate routing cameras again focuses on the license plate, not the driver per se, and feeds that information back to their software platform that can alert officers if a stolen vehicle or an individual associated with a vehicle potentially has a warrant for us to respond or direct resources to in an attempt to apprehend that individual with either the stolen car or with a warrant. What it also allows us to do is backtrack that camera information if we were investigating a potential crime, to see what vehicles were in a certain area during the time of an offense. So certainly a force multiplier from a technology perspective that gives us an additional resource at our hands for not only preventing things from happening here in the city but also being able to appropriately investigate crimes after they occurred and hold the individual responsible who may have committed those offenses.
Speaker 1:So we've covered a lot already, but we still have some cool stuff to talk about. Three words autonomous security robots. We've launched a two-year pilot program to deploy two of these bots for around-the-clock support in public spaces. Tell us more about this.
Speaker 3:We took some feedback from our calls for service and data that we collect at the police department in recognition of some of the areas that are unique to our city that have use for additional eyes per se from something like an autonomous security robot. So the Rockcrest Park and Garage and Riverside Crossing Park are two locations that we identified that would be a nice supplement to our patrol staff and our business district unit to have a robot in place. So the first robot will be at the Rock Crest Parking Garage and it will basically traverse that parking garage for several hours of the day. It has a docking station on the third floor of the parking garage and it's quite large, so it's about a 400-pound robot that is easily recognizable and marked with our Please tell me.
Speaker 1:There's a red light that flashes back and forth.
Speaker 3:There are flashing lights and Dublin police markings on there and it's got some unique tech features that not only provide camera footage from inside of the robot, but also two-way communication with our Northwest Regional Emergency Communication Center. Should somebody that was in need need to contact emergency resources, they can do that straight from connecting with a robot.
Speaker 2:I have so many questions. Let's start with the why. So why are we doing this? Can you discuss the benefits, the real-time data, things like that? What makes robots the right call?
Speaker 3:Yes, as I mentioned, it's a multiplier of our current staffing. So we have officers that patrol districts throughout the city, as well as a business district unit that patrols that Riverside Crossing Park area and Bridge Park and some parts of historic Dublin, but they can't be everywhere at the same time and there are only a few officers that are responsible for this area. So, having the ability to access the cameras that are on these robots, should we get a call for service in the parking garage or in the park, it certainly operates as a resource for us to get a better visual on a situation before our officers were to respond there or, most effectively, to deter any of that activity. When someone who may be looking for opportunities for less than admirable intentions to see this robot and recognize it's got cameras on it. It has police logos on it, flashing lights that they may choose to do that elsewhere, not to do that at all.
Speaker 1:So this, like if there's something that's going down in there and someone's chasing somebody you know, I'm just saying the worst case scenario you can go up and push a 911 button, right.
Speaker 3:Yeah, bruce. So you could press the call box feature on the robot and it would immediately connect you to our 911 dispatching center. Additionally, officers who may not be on the scene could access, via a software platform, the camera footage in there to see exactly what is happening on that scene before they would arrive and potentially reroute themselves to a different access point of the parking garage or the park to get a better view of the incident or to potentially intervene wherever those individuals may be at.
Speaker 2:All right, I'm thinking about this from the driving and parking standpoint. Talk a little bit about how these robots will move in the parking garage with tight quarters, how they avoid cars parked or moving.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so currently it's in the testing phase in the Rockcrest parking garage and engineers from the company will come out and basically route its patrol path. And then there is technology inside of the robots.
Speaker 2:Ironically, you could imagine a roomba vacuum goes around your house and you know, avoids things my room, but doesn't avoid things, it just keeps running into them over and over.
Speaker 3:Well, thankfully we did not partner with Roomba on this, but it does have technology inside of the robot so that way it will avoid and stop. Specifically, if there's an individual that is coming to have an interaction with a robot, attempt to make that call or have two-way communication with one of our dispatchers. Similarly, it would do the same thing as it patrols throughout the garage. They do operate at about three miles an hour to traverse up and down the garage, but certainly the visibility of the robots and stature of them should be easily recognizable by a member of the public or a driver traversing the garage. Now, these things I don't know. You know we had them at a member of the public or a driver traversing the garage.
Speaker 1:Now, these things I don't know. You know we had them at the State of the City and they're very cool. Will you describe to our listeners what the size of these robots are?
Speaker 3:Yeah, so it's probably about five feet tall and about a 400-pound robot, so it is not small by any sense of the imagination. About a 400 pound robot, so it is not small by any sense of the imagination. And again, marked with police markings, has police red and blue lights, spotlights, so again, very easily recognizable by a member of the public should they need to interact with it or, if they see it, to know exactly what it is. Gotcha.
Speaker 2:Okay, so bots can work for how long? How long is their shift?
Speaker 3:So they actually don't, per se, have a shift, but they can operate for several hours before they would need a charge. So what we've done is take a look at some of the data that we retain for the busier times in those garages in the parks and then we have monitored that data to provide us with an optimal patrol timeline for the robot. So, again, they'll operate several hours and then they will charge during down hours, when there's regularly not a lot of traffic or vehicular traffic or foot traffic in those garages.
Speaker 2:The robots are also a great tee up to yet another initiative we launched this year the Business District Unit, or BDU. Tell us about this.
Speaker 3:So the Business District Unit again is us taking a look at some of the more unique areas of the city and again, when I started my career 20 years ago, bridge Park didn't exist.
Speaker 3:When times change, we have to evolve with new technology, new businesses and new environments. Certainly Bridge Park is one of those and presents some unique challenges for us at the police department because it's different than any type of the city and the density in the pedestrian foot traffic in that area is certainly something we've taken a look at and recognize the need for additional staffing to help us not only police that area but engage with residents and business owners and visitors in that area to make sure that we are appropriately responding to their concerns and preventing crimes from occurring. So we launched the business district unit in February of this year. So that is a supervisor and two officers that have specific responsibility in the within that business district and their focus is crime prevention, reduction and response to incidents that are occurring in that area, but also a heavy focus on connecting with residents and business owners in that area to get a better understanding of the problems that they face and to help provide solutions to those problems.
Speaker 2:And this unit focuses on the philosophy of right places, right times and right reasons. Can you talk a little bit more about those guiding pillars?
Speaker 3:Yeah, absolutely so. This is a data-driven approach to helping us deploy our resources in the right places, at the right times and for the right reasons. So we have a law enforcement planner at the police department who takes a look at crimes that are not only occurring in Dublin but in the surrounding area and helps us not just the business district unit, but also our other patrol staff deploy resources in the most effective and efficient manner. So that way we have officers patrolling areas that we want to deter activity from occurring that we've seen occur, whether that be in Dublin or in our surrounding communities, to be the most efficient and responsive police department to keep our community safe.
Speaker 1:So there are multiple focuses for this unit and you've kind of touched on it, but traffic, noise, reckless driving, loading zones, parking and crime patterns. So how did you land on all of those topics?
Speaker 3:So again, those are topics that we have heard from our community members as issues of concern that they want assistance with from the police department, come up with strategic plans to address those issues, but also to be flexible and understand that those priorities can change over time based on what is happening in our community and our business district. So again, that regular engagement with the community members and business owners and developers within that business district is extremely important for them to ensure that those priorities are up to date and consistent with the expectation of the community and providing the best safety that we possibly can.
Speaker 2:When you wrap everything we've talked about today regarding high tech, it's really about one overarching goal being the leader in deploying this technology to keep our residents even safer. Sergeant Clark, I'd like to get your take on that.
Speaker 4:Anytime we can bring technology into the fold in law enforcement to not only keep our citizens safer by putting our officers in the right spot, but also help keep our officers safer by getting them information that they wouldn't normally have ahead of them getting there. I think it puts everyone the officers, the community, everyone in a much better spot when we're responding to calls, because we have a much better idea of what's going on before we get there and we can actually formulate a plan instead of going into a lot of these situations completely blind, relying on information that may or may not be accurate.
Speaker 2:Okay, guys, we wrap every episode with some rapid fire questions. I know you're ready, so let's jump right into it. I'll start with you, Deputy Chief. Tell us about your life away from work. What's one hobby you enjoy?
Speaker 3:Well, most of my hobbies revolve around my children because they keep us, my wife and I, very busy, so they're both very avid in sports, so I enjoy coaching my son's baseball team and coaching him in wrestling and then being a crazy soccer dad and watching my daughter play soccer, so my son's also taken up fishing lately, so it's something fun that's outside of sports that him and I can get to do as well, so we've been enjoying that.
Speaker 2:How about you, Sergeant Clark?
Speaker 4:I'm lucky I only have one child, so while she does take up a lot of my time, I get a little more time but I think most of my hobbies. Recently we, several years ago, purchased a 25-acre farm up in Delaware County. So just taking care of the property and doing everything outside there, that's most of my time outside of work.
Speaker 2:Do you have animals? We've got tons of animals.
Speaker 4:Oh my, we actually run an adoption center for donkeys and mules Wow.
Speaker 2:Who knew?
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's a first on Lake Ahead, right here. You both are military veterans. Thank you for your service to our country. Deputy Chief, you're a Marine. How did that service lead to a career in law enforcement?
Speaker 3:Well, from a young age I knew I wanted to be a police officer. My dad was a police officer for over 30 years in a smaller town just about an hour and a half north of Dublin. But the Marine Corps teaches a lot of character traits and things like hard work, integrity, discipline and commitment and I think all of those are fundamental characteristics that a police officer needs to have. So the foundation building of those characteristics in the Marine Corps certainly assisted in preparing me for a future in law enforcement.
Speaker 2:Sergeant Clark, an Army veteran. Same question for you what led to your career in law enforcement?
Speaker 4:Yeah, a lot of the same stuff. Obviously, being in the military you build that core foundation of the values and what type of work environment you want to be in foundation of the values and what type of work environment you want to be in. I did not grow up in a law enforcement family, but it was a natural transition from the military into law enforcement because it's a lot of the same type of people, a lot of the same things that they hold near and dear to them, the same type of work environment and what's expected of you. So it was a very natural fit.
Speaker 2:All right, Isn't there a friendly competition? You know the Army's than marines or anything along those lines respectfully, there's no competition.
Speaker 1:Okay, good answer uh, sergeant clark, you look very comfortable on camera in our drone videos um. Will you star in any more videos? Uh, what's the future like?
Speaker 4:uh, that would probably be a question for our uh public information officer, that she would. She would know better. But i'm'm glad I look comfortable. I must be doing something right by fooling fooling you guys, that I look comfortable on camera.
Speaker 2:I think he said we have to talk to his agent.
Speaker 1:His agent sitting right next to him.
Speaker 2:We mentioned you're a pilot, which is news to me. What do you fly and where do you fly?
Speaker 4:I don't fly very often anymore. It's quite an expensive hobby and obviously not making a career out of it. It's tough to find time and money to fly, but just small single engine land airplanes. And when I do fly I fly out of Ohio State University Airport. So I just rent a plane and fly out of there. Wow.
Speaker 2:Have you ever jumped out of a plane?
Speaker 4:I have not jumped out of a plane. I tried when I was in the army to get them to send me to to jump school and never happened wow, all right, deputy chief, best police movie of all time I've got two bad boys and training day.
Speaker 1:Oh, I thought you're gonna say bad boys and bad boys.
Speaker 4:Uh, same question sergeant clark whole best police movie. End of Watch.
Speaker 3:Okay.
Speaker 2:I don't think I saw that one.
Speaker 3:It's a good one.
Speaker 2:Something to do this weekend.
Speaker 3:There, you go?
Speaker 2:How about radio code? You say the most.
Speaker 3:If I'm on the radio, things have gone horribly wrong. No, so I would have no answer for this, hoping to stay off of the radio.
Speaker 2:How about a code?
Speaker 4:you don't want to have to say there's a lot I don't want to have to say. I think what I say the most is mostly just a sigh and then go ahead.
Speaker 1:All right, sergeant Clark. Last question what's something you want the public to know about police work?
Speaker 4:Specifically related to the drone stuff that we're doing. I think I just want the public to know that, while the technology can be scary and it's you know something that people aren't used to seeing drones fly overhead and knowing that the police are operating them they really are there for your safety. They are not there to spy on you. We are flying these directly to calls for service and they are really there to make everyone safer and help you be safer, help us be safer and and really increase our effectiveness.
Speaker 1:Deputy Chief same question.
Speaker 3:I think what I'd want the public to know is that the Dublin Police Department is full, full of the most selfless individuals that you could possibly imagine. Um. They have dedicated um their most of their entire adult lives to protecting, engaging um and being involved in this community. Um and take things to heart. Um, they take the safety of this community to heart. They take crime that happens in this community personally. They want to stop it. They want to engage with residents to solve problems and deter crime. But, most importantly, that every member of our organization is here and ready to serve, wants to engage with the public, here and ready to serve, wants to engage with the public, and that at all times, please call us if you have an emergency, if you have a problem that you think we can assist with. You're never bothering us. That's what we're here for. We're dedicated to service, fully engaged in public safety, and I'm honored to work with the men and women of our department.
Speaker 2:Wow, that's a mic drop moment there, but don't actually drop our mic, please. They're very expensive.
Speaker 3:I'm just going to rub my nose on it. That's what I'm supposed to do, perfect.
Speaker 2:Well, dc Lattanzi and Sergeant Clark, thank you so much for everything you do and the entire department are doing every day. Much of what we talked about here is seen drones, robots and the activated police presence but there's so, so much that you guys do behind the scenes that's never seen in keeping Dublin and the residents safe. So thank you very much.
Speaker 1:Thank you. Thank you and to our listeners, thank you as well for taking the time to connect with your city. Tune in next time as we continue to explore the many personalities and experiences that make Dublin a thriving place to live, work and grow. Thank you.