Public safety · Case study11A / MISSION BRIEF
Inside LAPD's drone as first responder program
A vendor case study reporting that LAPD drones arrived on scene ahead of patrol units on 73 percent of dispatched calls during the pilot, which the department cited in converting to a permanent unit.
Key takeaways
- Arrival-ahead-of-units is the headline metric agencies track.
- Pilot programs convert to permanent units on measured outcomes.
- Figures come from the vendor, so read them as vendor-reported.
Why it matters for pilots in training
Concrete numbers to benchmark against, with the caveat that a supplier published them.
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