Santa Monica Police Department Officer points to helicopter. Do we really need another eye-in-the sky?
Dear Santa Monica Observer:
There was an annoying helicopter hovering low above my Santa Monica residence for about an hour today.
I assumed it was LAPD so checked SMPD twitter to see if there was any police activity. I was surprised to see no activity, however there was a tweet from SMPD announcing a new SMPD helicopter patrol to provide "situational awareness."
Another tweet complaining about the noise gave the helicopter's call sign as N6605.
I've supplied a link that gives N6605's flight path over Santa Monica as well as its flight log. It has apparently been patrolling SM twice a day. I can't discover if N6605 is the helicopter SMPD is using.
Can you shed any light on this? LAPD has two helicopters that fly along the coast of Santa Monica multiple times every day. Our computers record everything we do, same with our phones, cars, and our city is loaded with closed circuit cameras. I'm wondering if we need even more daytime surveillance?
Do we really need another eye-in-the sky?
Gary Davidson, Santa Monica Resident
Reply from the Santa Monica Police Department:
Good evening,
Thank you for the email. While the Santa Monica Police Department does not currently have any information about any threats to our community, we are maintaining our increased police department presence throughout the city as well as in the air. We understand that our helicopter may be a bit disconcerting, do know aerial coverage is an invaluable resource to us because it provides us with additional situational awareness and enables us to quickly deploy and manage our field resources.
We will continue to monitor various sources for actionable intelligence associated with our community, but we encourage our community members to keep communicating with us online and via telephone. Our strong relationship with the community is the key to our being able to keep Santa Monica safe.
Joseph A. Cortez
Lieutenant
Executive Officer
Office of the Chief of Police
Santa Monica Police Department
Step back and ponder the complaints that would come in if Urban Air Mobility ever produces and operates VTOL craft on the scale of the Uber Elevate plan.
ReplyDeleteRotor wing flight makes a lot of noise, it is physics!
Santa Monica embodies all the worst things about liberal cities and the worst things about backwards conservative cities simultaneously. High tax and ridiculously funded police that wants their toys in the air for the occasional bike theft that they do nothing about anyway.
ReplyDeleteIdiots all around. Ground the "surveillance" helicopters.
The overall cost of that Helicopter per hour is well above $4000. an hour. Let me ask you this, Is it worth it? Shame on you SMPD. There are ppl starving in your city!
ReplyDeleteThe official urges citizens to keep contacting the PD with their concerns, and the PD will listen to their complaints and then urge citizens to keep contacting them with their complaints.
ReplyDelete