CARROLLTON, Ga. — Football is back! Thousands of people showed up Friday for the Carrollton Langston Hughes kickoff game. Police have a new security tool to make sure fans stay safe while enjoying the game.
It’s the time students, parents, and fans have been waiting for now that high school football has kicked off. Jalessa Jones knows what her favorite things are.
“I love the excitement, the thrill, the early tailgating,” Jones said, a parent to two boys.
Carrollton Police have a new tool to give them a different perspective with so many people to keep an eye on.
“The Chamber of Commerce reached out and said that they had a drone that they weren’t using and donated it to us,” Carrollton Police Lt. Brad Easterwood said. “This allows us to go up to 400 feet, and the officer has to keep sight of it. I’m just pretty much above us, and I can see pretty much to our square right now.”
Lt. Easterwood said the technology is already familiar to many officers.
“It’s basically like an iPhone.,” Easterwood said. “You can take pictures. You can record the video.”
The new drone isn’t just an eye in the sky for football games in Carrollton. It’ll be used during the school day to keep students safe.
“If a school kid walks off from the school, we’ll be using it for that,” Easterwood said. “They can locate the kid. If we have a suspicious person, the officers are responding, I can put this up in there and locate somebody if they need to.”
It’s something giving a sense of security to parents like Jones.
“I have two children, so any extra layer of security where my kids are safe, especially around our own campus, is a good thing,” Jones said. “It’s useful for them and also another protection layer for us, the kids.”
Easterwood believes this is just the beginning of how Carrollton Police can use the new drone.
“It’s only going to get better,” Easterwood said. “I think it’s going to help officers if we can get used drones to go in houses, to clear houses, to maybe even get to scenes before the officer gets there and able to see what’s going on before they actually arrive on scene.”
It’s a new view for officers to better monitor security through eyes high in the sky.
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