S2 E11 - Sgt. Brian Hon, Aviation UAS Program Manager

In this episode of Seven Points, hosts Warren Trent and Sgt. Kameron Lee take the podcast on location to a working hangar at Falcon Field to talk about one of the fastest-growing technologies in law enforcement. Their guest is Sgt. Brian Hon, Aviation UAS Program Manager for the Arizona Department of Public Safety.

Sgt. Hon shares his journey from growing up in Tucson to serving in law enforcement for more than two decades. Along the way, he describes how a career that began in patrol and the Vehicular Crimes Unit eventually led him to pioneer DPS’s drone program. What started with a single off-the-shelf drone used to document crash scenes has grown into a statewide program that supports investigations, tactical operations, disaster response, and public safety missions.

Listeners will learn how drones are helping troopers map crash scenes in minutes instead of hours, locate suspects during searches, assist SWAT operations, and safely assess hazardous situations. Sgt. Hon also explains how drones were deployed during major flooding in Globe, helping crews search damaged areas and assess infrastructure.

The conversation also addresses privacy concerns and the strict policies that guide drone use. Sgt. Hon makes it clear that drones are response tools designed to improve safety for officers and the public.

It is a fascinating look at how emerging technology is transforming modern policing in Arizona.

Transcript

Hello everyone and thank you for tuning in again to the DPS7 points podcast. We are in a working hanger here at Falcon Field because we're talking aviation, right? We're here with Sergeant Brian Han, who is our aviation UAS program manager. Program manager. It's a lot of a lot of words, but thank you for being here. This is this is something that interests me greatly because within the last 10 years to see the way our drone program has evolved has been pretty fun to watch. Um, but before we get into everything drones and what you do and what we're doing as an agency with drones, we want to learn a little bit more about Brian and a little about about you personally. So, if you wouldn't mind sharing maybe what you're willing to, where you grew up, your life a little bit, how you got here, children, hobbies. We definitely want to learn about the things yo u do outside of drones. Absolutely. Go ahead. So, uh, grew up in, uh, in Tucson. uh spent most of my young life there and then uh high school years, my dad uh moved to Las Cruces, New Mexico for a business opportunity. Took the family out there. Spent my high school years there. Literally the week I graduated, I was back in Arizona. Uh spent uh spent a year here before my parents decided that it was a good idea to join back as well. So, they joined me back there. Um, and then I went and spent two years in Washington State, uh, serving a mission for my church, which was a pivotal point for me because while I was up there, somebody just out of the blue said, "You know what, Han, you'd make a good cop." Just like that. Just like that. Just out of the blue, right? Uh, and uh, he had just graduated from the Border Patrol Academy, so it was fresh on his mind. But up to that point, I wanted to be in computer sciences. I cannot imagine my life in computer sciences right now. is where I've been for the past 20 some odd years and I'm very happy with it. Um, so as soon as I got back from that, uh, I went and got my real estate license just to try and, you know, get a some sort of a a career ahead of me. And then, uh, met my wife and, uh, we got married and shortly after that, I jumped into the corrections academy with the Puma County Sheriff's Department. Uh, did that for a little over a year and then decided to move on to deputy. So in 2004 I became a deputy with the Pima  County Sheriff's Department. Uh had a great time there. Uh but wanted to move onwards and uh my father had actually after I had gone through the police academy, he decided to do so as well and he went on with Phoenix PD. Really? Okay. I didn't didn't know that. I didn't know. I knew at that point in time uh he was told that it was the first time in Phoenix PD history that a son in uniform had pinned the badge on their father. Wow. Wow. That's Yeah, that that's a reversal again. That's a neat story. That's actually a really cool story. So, that was pretty cool. And then, uh, shortly after that, uh, somebody mentioned to my dad DPS, and he wasn't enjoying his time at Phoenix as much as he thought he would, but he really liked the idea of DPS. So, he came to me and said, "Hey, what if the two of us later roll over to DPS?" Okay. So, we did. So in was it 2005 uh he and I decided to make the shift over to DPS. And then at that point in time we were told that we were the first father and son to go through advanced basic with DPS lateraling over together. Oh yeah. I don't think I've ever heard of that. Wow. Before actually. Yeah. So so we went through uh that in was it 05 or No, that was 07 that we went through there. Um, and then, uh, he ended up not staying with the agency and he left and he went back to what he was doing beforehand. Uh, but I stuck around, spent, uh, see what was it, it 7 years out in Salom, AZ, three years out in Ajo, AZ. Uh, and then was convinced to come to our vehicular crimes unit where I spent a good amount of time before coming over here. So, vehicular crimes, I've said it. If you want overtime and if you don't really want much of a life, go into vehicular crimes because the the the skills that our detectives in vehicular crimes have, we use for all of our investigations, not even related to vehicular crimes. So, they get called out for everything. Y So, I'm sure you were busy. How long were you in vehicular crimes? I was in VCU for almost nine years. So, uh, one of the longest ten years over there, but I enjoyed it. I loved it. Uh, had some great learning opportunities. I was presented with opportunities that I wouldn't have had any other place. Yeah. In VCU. Um, which actually brought me into the drones. Um, but I'll get to that in a bit. But with, uh, with my personal life, uh, shocker, I fly drones pretty much everywhere I go with me, I have a drone. I go to vacation in Hawaii, my little drone comes with me. Okay. We go we go hiking in the mountains, my little drone goes with me. Get some awesome family photos that way. Some good scenery and stuff like that. Is there something in particular that you like doing with a drone on your off time? Like it is there is it nature? Is it I like capturing shots that you can't get any other way. Very unique shots. Very unique shots. whether it be like straight top down shots of something or orbits of something in the sky or you know just things that that you know that you can't get any other way. So it it creates some fun stuff. Uh when we go to Hawaii, I like to uh fly the drones out and see if we can't find any uh any ocean life out there. You know, maybe do a little little bit of whale watching with the drones or something like that. Get some really fun fun footage that way that like I said, you can't get any other way. The aerial view gives you such a different perspective. Absolutely. And I was actually talking to my kids about you coming on that we're gonna be talking about drones and things like that. And I explained a little bit how we use them and I don't know all the technology myself, but I've seen them used on scenes that I've been on. Um, but you know, I was explaining to them how when you're standing on the road looking at a scene in front of you, sometimes things just don't make sense, right? How did that car get there? in that position, but when you look at it from above and you can see everything, it you're like, "Oh, now it makes sense." Absolutely. So that aerial view, you know, we diagram scenes and when I started, when you started, we did it by hand. Yep. So I was explaining to them how to scale, we would draw these things by hand. And I remember one particular collision that we investigated. It was it involved a skid steer and a van, another car going the other way, and we just couldn't make sense of everything. We had all the all the um debris everywhere and and all of our evidence and the scene. As soon as we laid it out and diagrammed it, everything made sense of how exactly how this this thing happened. Yep. So, absolutely. Um yeah, the these these drones are cool. You like doing that on your off time and you spend a lot of time doing that? Absolutely. And then I like to mix drones with mountain biking. I love to mountain bike as well. And uh I can take a drone and I can put it in a follow me mode and the drone can follow me while I'm mountain biking without a pilot assisting. So it gets some some good fun shots that way. That's amazing. So how just how did your marriage, if you will, with drones happen? So while I was in the vehicular crimes unit, right, um we went to a conference um and it was a collision conference and they were talking about photo-gramometry. So the the science of taking photographs and stitching them together to be able to take measurements from those photographs and they showed us that we could use photographs to create 3D versions of our scenes. So they took just regular old camera phone, walked around a vehicle, taken a series of photographs, were able to stitch it together in this software and create a 3D version of the vehicle that was measurable, scalable, you could drop it into simulation software, things like that. And uh then they started talking about using drones for that. So in the vehicular crimes unit, I then went to my supervisor at the time and I presented the the technological idea to him. Um and we looked at department policy and everything and there wasn't anything prohibiting it. So, I went through the process on my own to get my FAA Part 107 license so that I could operate the drone, figured out how to gain airspace clearances in restricted airspace, and my supervisor purchased me a drone, and we just went out and started using it. Um, and so we started doing collision scenes with it. And like you were saying, a top- down version of a collision scene is a completely different thing. you know, back back when we started, you know, if it was a big collision scene, you know, in the in the Salom or Ajo office, I'd have four or five pieces of paper taped together on a table and I'd be, you know, drawing on that thing for days sometimes. Well, now I can get that drone out there and within 20 minutes, I can capture the entire scene without any of my guys having to stand in the scene, get everybody out of the roadway and have it be safer and quicker and collect more data. and sometimes just not even the the photo-gramometry, but sometimes just a single photograph from this guy. So, there was one collision scene on the uh the 202 where a uh a drunk driver had gone and piled through a whole bunch of other vehicles. There was stop traffic, construction, and he just went straight through this scene, pushing vehicles out of the way, uh injured a few people, killed somebody. And so we were out there measuring this scene traditionally like we always have, but then I put the drone up and I took photographs, but what I like to do is I call them endcap photographs. I'll put the drone up at the far side of the scene and I'll take a shot that captures the whole scene from an angle. So you could see on that single photograph the vehicles that have been pushed out of the way where his vehicle ended up. And uh when I spoke to the county attorneys afterward, they said that single photograph after the defense attorney looked at that, turned to the client and said, "Plead." Yeah. Wow. Because that single photograph told the entire story. The proof was in the photo. Yeah. Absolutely. Wow. But we're in an era of technology and we as law enforcement, we're trying to embrace it like everyone else. We're trying to find ways to utilize it to make us more efficient, clear scenes faster like we've talked about. And I we saw it just the other day. Uh we had a a fatality out on I 10 and the road was opened so much more quickly than it would have been had we hand-measured and hand rolled like we used to. Absolutely. Um and not only that, when you measure a scene hand-measured, you're only collecting the specific points of data that you want to collect. When you're doing this with the drone, you're collecting all data. So that way I can create a 3D rendering of the scene afterwards and I can literally walk a jury or walk a victim's family through that scene exactly how it was that day. We're not missing any of that data that we might have if we had, you know, maybe decided something wasn't important to collect or miss something. It's all being collected by those photographs and then turned into either a two-dimensional like really really detailed Google Maps image of the scene or a 3D rendering. So, walk us through, let's start with the evolution of our drone program here at the agency. Uh, you talked about how we started using our first one. Where did it go from there? And how are we using drones now? What what work groups, what work units are now using drones and how are we utilizing them? So, we started off with little old me and a Phantom 4 Pro drone. Oh. To get it off the shelf at Costco. Um, unbeknownst to me, uh, our aviation division was actually attempting at the same time to start a drone program, but unsuccessfully. They they weren't able to get buy in from command staff. Um, so I went in and I just started doing this, right? Um, once aviation found out that I was doing it, um, the the the knee-jerk reaction was, "Oh, shoot. Let's make sure he's doing this right." So, initially, they actually stopped me from doing what I was doing. They said, "Time out. Hold on." But as soon as they figured out that I was going through all the proper steps, that I'd got my part 107, that I was getting airspace clearances and restricted airspace and things like that, brought me into the fold. So at that at that point in time, it was Sergeant Ryan Freeman in aviation who was trying to get it going. So he and I started putting our heads together and we created a training curriculum. We created the the general order, the manual, and we started uh teaching drone schools. So, the way we do our drone schools here uh at DPS is before you go through the the Arizona DPS training, you have to get your air your uh FAA part 107 license. So, that's essentially the FAA's way of making sure that we know how to operate our drones in the same airspace as manned aircraft. Manned aircraft will always take priority because there's life aboard those, whereas ours cameras with wings. So, we make sure that we're being safe as we're operating those in the sky. So, the the the pilots in training first get that and then they go through our our ground school. So, our ground school is is a 40-hour week-long school. Um, they get uh refresher on the FAA rules and regs. They get updates on the Arizona state laws regarding drones, department policies, and then we put them through scenarios and drills and flight maneuvers. They get 10 hours of flight time before they graduate from our DPS drone school. They have to be able to complete a skills evaluation and a check flight to make sure that they're to the point where we need them. But if you're a drone operator, you go through all that. It doesn't end there. I've I've had troopers that have worked for me that were drone operators and they had to consistently keep up and track the training and maintenance and all that stuff. Correct. Require them to to get 60 minutes of flight time every or 90 minutes of flight time every 60 days. So, but that's the absolute bare minimum. This is a a diminishing skill set. If if you don't fly this thing periodically, you're going to lose that skill set. And so, we encourage our pilots to get out there and to practice, to train, to to learn, and to grow on these. Yeah. And it's like anything else. You don't keep it maintained. You don't keep the batteries charged. I mean, there's just little things that um you run into situation where you bring it to a scene and it doesn't work, the software doesn't work, what whatever, and then it's it's useless to you. So, right, you don't want to be that guy who shows up on a super important scene. You get there, your batteries are all drained dead, your memory card's full, the software is out of date. So, we encourage them to to keep up on that. Each pilot is assigned their own drone. So, it's kind of the way we have our patrol cars. You know, you're assigned this drone. This is your drone. You maintain it. You take care of it. You have some vested interest in this drone. All right? So, that way they get to know their drone intimately. Um, I mean, we started the drone program out with scene mapping. That's that's where the department cut our teeth. And uh to this day, we're in the state of Arizona. We're still one of the one of the premier mapping uh agencies. You know, I I have helped other people get their mapping programs started and things like that. Um but we're we're still kind of taking the cake on that a little bit. But from there, other work groups started realizing we have stuff going on. Uh so uh hazmat jumped in very quickly because they can take a drone, send it down range or even use the zoom camera, be able to assess a dangerous situation without ever having to put a human in danger. Yeah. Right. So so the the the human lives that could possibly be saved, the cost in in finances as well. I didn't realize that their hazmat suits that they put on, some of them are onetime use and a couple thousand dollars at that. Wow. So they're able to put a drone down range, never have to damage the drone, never have to spend that money on a hazmat suit and get idea on what's going on down range. Yeah. Um shortly after that, our tactical groups jumped in on it as well. They were able to see that we could use these for uh for scouting missions, for surveillance, for uh just an eye in the sky to be able to help out operations. And so it kind of snowballed from there. Even our uh our wireless services bureau, they have a couple drones that they can now use to do surveys of our radio towers throughout the state. So once again, instead of putting somebody in danger, having to put in a a climbing harness, send them all the way up a radio tower, they can now send a drone up that radio tower, take photographs of serial numbers, you know, see if there's any damage to the systems and stuff like that. So drones are assigned, this one in front of us is assigned to Brian Han. That one is one of my drones. Yes. So, tell us tell us a little bit about what we're looking at here. So, this is the DJI uh M300. Uh the camera that it has on there is a uh a camera with a 200 time zoom. Uh there's another camera that we can put on it that's specifically designed for mapping. Uh I can also mount a spotlight to it. So, this one is kind of our catch-all do all. She's a bit of a beast. Um and then, uh the temperature ratings, it can fly in really hot weather. It can fly in just a little bit of rain, stuff like that. Um, so this one is kind of our our do all drone. Okay. It's a little bit bigger, a little bit tougher to lug around. So we don't give this out to every single trooper because we only have so much space in our patrol cars. So we there our specialized units have this. So our vehicular crimes unit has this. Um, our react groups have this for uh, you know, doing collision scenes as well. Um, some of our tactical groups have this and our wireless services bureau has has one of these as well. So we were talking about an example where you actually used this model drone um after some severe flooding in Globe. Y can you talk about that a little bit? Yeah. So when when the flooding happened uh in Globe, what was it 3 months ago now? A little longer than that. Little a little longer than that. Three or four months ago. Um the the the amount of forces that they were able to bring to bear was pretty good. You know, all the agencies came together. It was fantastic. But with as much damage as the the water had caused with brushing trees in and things like that, covering things from the ground was pretty difficult, right? Um and so they asked for DPS to help. And so we brought in depending on the day and and stuff like that, we brought in anywhere between four to six drones to come help out. And there were drones like this about this size. Uh in fact, this very drone was out there uh doing some good work. So, we were able to fly the waterways where we weren't able to get people in on foot and we were able to look for stranded vehicles, stranded people. We were able to look for uh damage to buildings, to structures, to bridges, things like that. Able to cover a lot more ground than anybody was able to on foot. And then we were able to capture video and and photos of those and then provide those to the uh the city managers so that they could do assessments for insurance. they could uh you know see what repairs needed to be done and things like that to be able to distribute resources. So it was an absolute force multiplier. Yeah. No, absolutely. And and when you when you have that much damage over that much time and and as long as it lasted, imagine the cost to keep a helicopter up in the air and then it would have to come down, you know, for all the maintenance and fuel and all that stuff. So th this isn't here in that capacity to replace our helicopters in any way, shape, or form, but it just fills in some really important gaps to help bolster um our capabilities from the air. Right. Uh our our department helicopters were out there working as well. Yep. Uh but they were able to focus on the the the higher impact areas and they were able to cover that ground and then we were able to take our multiple drones and cover multiple other areas. So, we were able to free them up from some of the I don't want to say mundane, but we were able to allow them to focus on the more important areas, the more high impact zones. Yeah. So, the the other point I wanted to touch on is we talked about troopers having them in their patrol cars. We just touched on it briefly. Let's talk about how highway patrol is using these drones. Not this one in particular, smaller ones. Um, but we have a lot of troopers that are assigned drones out in the field. And then we recently, from my understanding, have a new type of drone that's actually mounted to the back of some of our pickups. We do. Oh, yeah. The fixed fixed ones. Yeah. Yes. Let's talk about those. So, uh, so troopers are carrying drones in their vehicles for a whole host of reasons. Pretty much it's limited by their imagination only. Um, mapping is one of the one of the primary reasons. You know, that way they can get out, they can map a scene very quickly, and like I was saying, they don't have to be in the road to do it. They capture all that data, clear the road, get things moving much quicker, but then we're able to use them in tactical situations as well. So, you have a vehicle bailout, you have a a giant desert to search, pop a drone up in the air, get an eye out there. Uh you have, you know, if you're searching for anything, being able to have that eagle-eyed view is very important. Um we had one where uh a suspect had ran from us out in Casa Grand area and uh our trooper deployed the drone. just so happened to be one of these bad boys. And uh the trooper was able to use the Flare camera to locate the suspect in the desert, turn the spotlight on, and the suspect pronned himself out on the ground because he thought it was a helicopter who was there to for him. So, our trooper was able to hold him in place until they were able to come get him. Uh barricaded vehicles, uh barricaded subjects in vehicles. We're able to put a drone out there and be able to see what they have in their hands, see what they've got going on before we ever put a person out there. So, we're able to use them for that. Um we're also able to use them for uh protests or for demonstrations just to be able to get an eye on the situation. Yeah. Um and then for the the tethered drones. So the tethered drones run on a cable system. So they are attached to the vehicle and then it runs up and depending on the length of the cable 150 200 foot the drone can sit there indefinitely because it's running off the battery on the vehicle. So most drones, this one you'll get about a 30 35 minute flight time. The smaller drones, 20 25 minute flight time, but that one literally indefinitely. Uh so you can put that up in the sky if you've got uh you know a prolonged operation or you just want to keep visibility on any given object or event or something like that. Put that thing up and it can stay there. Um, all of these drones are currently running on software that the department just purchased that allows us to then live stream that footage to anybody that it needs to go to. Yeah, that that's amazing. And I'm I'm thinking of certain situations, especially some that I've been a part of where we've had bailouts of suspects and things like that that ultimately resulted in maybe a tactical response being needed. But there's never there's not such thing as too much information, I don't think, when it comes to safety and providing information to our TAC units that are coming. So, when we're able to launch one of these, tell them how many people we can see in the car, what they're doing, all of these things before they even get there, they're that much more prepared to go into this dangerous situation. Absolutely. Even our SWAT team, our SWAT team heavily uses drones. So on most of their operations, we'll have a drone popped up in the air before they roll up on scene so that they can get a uh a good eye on what's happening. You know, whether there's animals in the backyard, whether there's people in the front yard, vehicles that they might need to deal with, things like that. So they're able to see that and then as they roll up on scene, you know, they'll do their call outs and things like that. And then before we ever send a person into that house, if feasible, we'll send a drone into that house. We have smaller little uh indoor drones that we'll send in so they have protected guards on the blades so that's not going to be a a danger to anyone in there. It can bump off walls and keep going. And we'll send that drone in there and we'll we'll go check it out. That way the SWAT team before they go in, they know the layout of the house. They know any potential obstacles and there have been time we times we have found animals or people inside the house that we were then able to uh deal with appropriately. Yeah. Oh yeah. So, one thing we want to let the public know, I guess, is with when it comes to these drones, these aren't just for our agency. We around the state assist any agency that needs our help. And even if they're taking leading on in on an investigation, we will take our drone and fly the scene for them if they want. Um, so our troopers are helping all around the state with with this equipment, helping other agencies that need it. Absolutely. Specifically, our remote duty troopers. Yes. remote duty troopers, you know, sometimes the county agency, our troop is the only other person out there with them. So, all the time, yeah, assisting with with other work groups, assisting with other tasks, other agencies. Let's touch lastly, I think, on on privacy concerns. Um because that that's a big thing right now. Um, let's let's talk let's let the let's reassure the public on how we're using these drones. Um, and how serious we take their privacy, too. So, absolutely. So, first and foremost, we're never going to just fly the drone around and start peeking into people's backyards or into people's houses, right? That is never going to happen, right? Anytime we're using this drone, we are either going to have a search warrant for the for the residence or for the structure that we're we're flying over or it's going to be in an open area with an open operation going and we're using it for the safety of our officers. Okay. So, this is never going to be used as, you know, like people say like a minority report type thing where we're going and just looking to see who's doing wrong. These are not a patrol unit. These are a response unit. Um, so that's never going to happen. Way of putting it. Yeah. So, second, anytime we capture footage with this, the drone is not always recording all footage at all times. Um, if there is a time where it is recording footage, that footage is going to be placed into evidence.com along with any body cam footage or anything like that. So, it'll it'll be there available for review or or and attached to a report number and everything just like just like just like any other video or photo uh would be would be captured as well. Um and then recently uh nationwide there's been concerns uh about the security of foreign made drones, right? Um a vast majority of the drones that we use are foreign made drones. Um they are absolutely phenomenal pieces of machinery and they just get out there and they work. Um the department has taken steps to uh ensure that whether or not our data is actually being uh taken and used by mal-factors used by foreign comp uh countries or whatnot, the department has taken steps to purchase software that firewalls the manufacturer from our drones. So the the data that is captured by our drones stays with our agency. It stays with the company that that we have contracted with and they are a US-based company. Uh that is also the same software that we're using then to uh capture our flight logs. So any flights that we have with these things are captured automatically. So we can show where the drones were flying, what they were doing, and that way we can make sure that we're you know doing what we need to be doing where we need to be doing it. Um and then that also provides us the opportunity to live stream that footage to command staff to those who are making decisions based on the information that we need to be gathering. Okay. Where do you see this program going from here? Are we at the Are we at the precipice? Absolutely not. No. Um, we're working with multiple companies who are producing newer systems. They're they're producing newer technology. It's getting better. It's getting faster. It's getting smaller. It's more efficient. We're we're going to get to the point where I think eventually every patrol unit could potentially have a small UAS that would be deployable and would be able to lock onto the GPS position of say their body camera and be able to be that eye in the sky kind of like an aerial body camera. Um there are technologies like that out there right now. We're just waiting for them to get smaller and better. But it's it's only going to help us and the public stay safer. Um, so long as the technology is used responsibly, like we fully intend to do with it, um, the the the things that we're able to do, the the investigations that we're able to forward, the evidence we're able to collect, it's only going to get better and better. Yeah. Wow, that's awesome. I got to say before we go, I met you a couple years ago when we were having some fun. You were flying a drone at the our no drone zone public service announcement. That was that was great. And, you know, maybe we'll do it again sometime. That was the beginning of my cinematic debut, both as a uh a cinematographer and as an actor. There you go. There you go. Well, we we are going to be working together here in the near future because we want to show the public some of the things that we've done with drones. So, we'll be putting stuff out on our social media platforms here in the near future, showing some of the operations we've done, showing how we utilize the drones because we think I think it's fascinating how we're using this technology and I I think a lot of people would be interested in seeing how we're actually using it on the ground. Absolutely. I have a ton of fun with it and I love doing community outreach type stuff. I've got a couple high schools that they request me to come back each each semester so that we can do presentations for their classes and things like that. Um, it's awesome. It's all fun for me. Cool. That's awesome. Well, Brian, thank you. Thanks for for having us. I mean, you have and we having and you and we enjoy it, you know. Absolutely. Thank you. Thank you everyone for our listeners and our viewers to this DPS 7 points podcast coming to you from a working hanger here at Falcon Field in Mesa, Arizona. Have a good day.