Americas Criminologist 06 02 26 Guest Rob Chadwick Retired FBI SA

Americas Criminologist 060226 Guest  Rob Chadwick Retired FBI SA

https://www.deusxdefense.com/

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:05):
Col steals the Cattle's Light, just trusting me as a fate,
A Shadows a Secrets Lot, Doctor Kerry Last the scot
amer a cost Gram analogist.

Speaker 2 (00:19):
Coming to.

Speaker 1 (00:22):
Sales of the law in the anasy Cales, A Crown
Break and Jage Bruce start a Fame.

Speaker 3 (00:35):
And here's America's criminologist, doctor Kerry Myers.

Speaker 2 (00:42):
Thank you, mister producer.

Speaker 4 (00:43):
I hope you're doing well. It's election day in many
states all over the United States. So in California, the
Golden State, has an important election, not only at the
state level, but some different local levels. So make sure
you go out and vote. We got a wonderful, wonderful,
beautiful country that we've been blessed to have, but you've

(01:05):
got to participate and it's important to do that. So
please consider going out and voting. It's something very important
that you should do. Welcome to America's Criminologists. As you know,
I'm doctor Curry Myers, retired major county sheriff, former special agent,
State trooper. Also spent fifteen years in the world of academia,
serving as a school dean and professor teaching criminology. This show,

(01:30):
we talk about crime culture and the foundations that sustain
a civil society. Having a new book coming out in
the spring of twenty twenty seven. It's called The Rise
of Feral Man and the Return of Feral Man. It's
actually a two volume set. It's an examination of America's
moral and cultural crisis. The first volume, The Rise of
Feral Man, explains how we lost our way. The second volume,

(01:52):
The Return of Feral Man, offers a practical road map
with restoring faith, family, information, and the foundations of a
healthy civilization. So stay tuned for more. My first book
was The Aved of Ferial Man. This is a continuation
of those and I'm about seventy five eighty percent done

(02:13):
with the rough drafts, and it's a large it's a
large volume of work, but I'm really excited and proud
of it, so I think you will enjoy it. So
that's why I wanted to split it up in two
separate volumes. And as always, you can explore more about
my work and applied criminology and criminal justice ethics by
visiting my substack at doctor Currymeyers dot substack dot com.

(02:36):
This segment of America's Criminologists with Doctor Curry Myers is
brought to you by Real Resilience. That's our e e. L. Resilience.
It's a transformative program helping inmates prepare for successful re
entry using inspirational films and guided discussions. Real Resilience teaches
practical tools to build resilience, strengthen relationships, and restore hope

(02:59):
for the future. It's real learning through real stories where
positive choices are modeled, not just preached. Real Resilience because
re entry isn't just released. It's a second chance done right. Okay,
we're going to discuss a topic that I really enjoy
I love it. I've done a lot of research on
it myself. In many ways, I wish I was younger

(03:21):
because I would have enjoyed working in the field with
this kind of work. It's drones in public safety now.
Whenever new technology enters law enforcement, there's always two camps.
One group says technology is the answer to everything. The
other says technology is dangerous and should be avoided altogether.

(03:42):
I think there's a happy medium in there. I think
we should embrace technology, including AI, but we need to
be the ones who are the drivers of that information
and use it as a tool as opposed to it
using us as a master as usual. You know, like
I said, the truth is some we're in the middle.
The reality is that criminals have always adapted faster than

(04:06):
we in law enforcement. That's just the way it has been.
We have always one step behind. They have been using
encrypted communications, they use their own technology, They have their
own drones, they use social media, they have artificial intelligence,
they use sophisticated surveillance methods. Criminal organizations are constantly evolving,

(04:29):
and some of them are turning to nation states, where
you see this combination of criminal organizations aligning with nation states.
Sometimes law enforcement has to evolve as a result. That
technology is only useful when it supports three things. Public safety, accountability,
better decision making. A drone doesn't make an arrest. A

(04:50):
drone doesn't testify in court. A drone doesn't exercise discretion
people do in A well trained, ethical law enforcement officer
on the other side of that, or a company that
helps law enforcement, should have those same standards when they're
used as a contractor for law enforcement. Technology, my friends,

(05:11):
is simply a force multiplier. It can be a huge advantage.

Speaker 2 (05:17):
If you have it.

Speaker 4 (05:17):
The question is whether we use advanced technology. The question
is whether we use it responsibly and effectively. Just imagine
a missing child in the woods. For a second, Imagine
an armed suspect hiding behind a building. Imagine an officer
responding alone to a domestic violence call. Imagine a large

(05:39):
public event where thousands of citizens need protection. In each
of those situations, having immediate aerial awareness can save lives.

Speaker 5 (05:49):
We used to have to.

Speaker 4 (05:51):
Have airplanes and helicopters, but now we can send up
something to have air support, and law enforcement drastically needs
air assets we always have. Instead of waiting several minutes
for officers to arrive and figure out what's happening, a
drone can be deployed overhead within moments, providing real time

(06:15):
intelligence before even officers reach the scene, and they can
go back to a command center and send valuable data
and information back to the command center. So you actually
have smart technology driven command centers that can use evidence
based policing, for instance, in order to make the world

(06:37):
safer in your city safer. So this means better information,
better tactics, better resource allocation, better officer safety, better public safety,
and when we implement it correctly, we can reduce unnecessary
use of force because officers arrive often uninformed about what

(06:58):
is in front of him. Operate in the blind. Most
of the time when we're doing public reactions, we don't
know what's right ahead of us. Today, we're going to
talk one of the nation's leading experts on tactical training,
public safety, technology, and operational deployment. He spent years leading
tactical training at the FBI Academy Quantico and now serves

(07:20):
as the head of Public Safety and Defense for douce
X Defense. We'll discuss what the future looks like, how
agencies can implement drone as first responder programs, how operators
are trained, privacy concerns, and why technology must always serve
people but not the other way around. Rob Chadwick so

(07:41):
pleased to have him on my show. I've had him
on my show before to talk about law enforcement issues.
He's the retired head of Tactical Training Unit at Quantico
for the FBI. He served as the principal Tactical Instructor
for the FBI. He was responsible for ensuring the operational
red OFI agents around the world and led the Bureau's

(08:04):
National Active Shooter Response training program. It's one of the
best response training programs in Rob has served on protective
details for seven US Attorney Generals and four FBI directors,
including as the Agent in charge for Attorney General William Barr.

(08:24):
He's been a SWAT sniper team leader, a technical, a
tactical mat amet excuse me, an international trainer, even representing
the US as keynote speaker at the twenty seventeen International
Active Shooting Preparation Conference in Prague. After responding to the
Mother Emmanuel Ame Church attack and Charleston, he authored the

(08:44):
FBI Active Shooter Awareness and Preparation for House of Worship.
Before an FBI, Rob served in the Special Operations Division
of the Fairfax County Police Department. He's a man who's
lived through the fight and trained athor others to meet
it head on. He also has a book out. I
was very fortunate that he gave me a copy, and

(09:06):
it's a fantastic book. I see it. It's also behind him.
If you're watching us on our podcast, I highly recommend it.
It's The Practical Guide to Personal Security, and I think
everybody should have one of these at the home, something
you can be able to refer to at any given time.
Rob is now the GM Public Safety and Public Safety

(09:28):
and Defense at deuce X Defense. It's an integrated drone,
gesock and security operations company. Rob thanks so much for
coming to show my friend.

Speaker 5 (09:39):
Doctor Myers. Great to be back with you. Always enjoy
your perspectives, your point of view, and appreciate what you
do for the community.

Speaker 4 (09:46):
Oh, thank you. So this type of work has become
so important. We're seeing a many law enforcement agencies across
the country that are trying their best to drones. You
have places like New York City that has gotten to
the point where they have thousands of drones that actually

(10:08):
go ahead of nine one one calls and they do
advanced work basically to see what's going on on site.
You have places in like Riverside, California, Sheriff Chad Bianco
as an example, where he developed a command center. He
has drone opportunities there and not only send drones out

(10:29):
before nine to one one calls, he uses them on
individual officers where they can get out with a drone
and send it up out of their trunk and be
able to be successful. However, and this is one of
my pet peeves. When we think about law enforcement, we
think about the FBI, or we think about NYPD, or
we think about LA. You know, we think about the

(10:50):
big agencies that have potential assets, but eighty percent of
law enforcement in the United States of America are less
than twenty five person departments maybe be up to fifty now,
but most of them are smaller and they don't have
the assets, They don't have the specialties that they need,
but they need this technology. It's in desperate need for

(11:12):
everybody to be able to have the same playing field,
and a NAZI just be a speciality for organizations that
have giant budgets, even though they should have it as well.
This is where your company, I think plays one of
the most important has one of the most important avenues

(11:33):
if you will, into helping law enforcement be safe, because
you can take away the amount of logistics, if you will,
and manpower needs that it would take that normally would
have to be to fill the void by that department
with manpower, technology, budgets, plus dedicating people who have to

(11:55):
be the drivers of those pilots of those drones, understand them,
be able to potentially work on them, all those kinds
of things and rob As you know, when I did
your introduction, you do different work in the FBI during
that time period, I did too. There was things about
every five years. I went, okay, I've done that. I
want to experience something else. So I transfer, you know,

(12:17):
I go to the field and wear commisides and police shootings.
But I started out in narcotics and worked undercover for
many years, and then I went to our tactical team,
and then I became the head of the Kland clandestine
lab units. So there are things you know that can specialty.
But law enforcement officers don't like to be stuck in
a rat hole their entire career. So it's important to

(12:41):
be able to help these agencies because officers can't get
rat holed into being just okay, now we spent maybe
one hundred thousand dollars on you to become a drone pilot,
and you have to be in this position for the
next eight ten years, and that it doesn't do much
for for officers wanting to reach out and do different things.

(13:05):
So tell us a little bit about your company, uh,
and just exactly the niche and how it's going so far.

Speaker 5 (13:15):
I appreciate it. And so I came to deis X
Defense at an imation.

Speaker 4 (13:21):
Sound I said that, and I didn't, says I apologize.

Speaker 5 (13:25):
Oh, that's all right. Now it's a little it is
spelled a little at d e U s X Defense.
So dais X was founded by Pat Madden, who's a
very very good friend of mine. Pat is one of
the most remarkable human beings you'll ever meet. He spent
time as a Marine Special Forces commander in the Global
War on Terra, got out, got his uh, you know,

(13:47):
Ivy League business degree and highly successful there, went on
to acts On, which of course, you know is the
eight hundred pound guerrilla in law enforcement technology, and did
wonders there, headed up the Taser division, and then started
what became act on Air. And so Pat had a vision,
saw an opportunity, very much collaborating with Axon. We're very

(14:10):
friendly with them and still have a lot of friends there,
a great organization, but saw a niche and an opportunity
to kind of go out there and to your point,
help those agencies understand the landscape because this is the
wild West in terms of you know, drone implementation. There's
so much that goes into putting an unmanned aerial vehicle

(14:33):
in the sky. We're getting ready to have the most
crowded airspace imaginable from about zero to four hundred feet,
which hasn't happened before in human history. You're going to
see between you know, Amazon deliveries and you know hobbyists
and law enforcement agency and every other imaginable application are

(14:54):
going to have aerial vehicles flying, and to be able
to do so safely and effectively is really confusing. And
so you know, you and I have talked before about
the crisis that is going on in law enforcement today.
The average American law enforcement he is twenty five to
thirty percent below staffing and to have to take a

(15:16):
trained police officer off the street to fly a drone
is a tough decision for a sheriff, for the chief
of police. And so you know, there's also the budget constraints.
There's so many providers out there, you know, from from
Skidio and Axon and Pala and then there's so many
What we want to do and what das X specializes

(15:39):
in is being equipment agnostic. We don't have our own drone.
We're not trying to sell you a type of drone.
What we want to do is work with these agencies
and build that trust to say here is what our
outcome is. This what I am trying to achieve with
our own program. And so that we because of the
people that Pat has red recruited and put into the

(16:02):
company that have credible experience in this application, to be
able to serve as that sort of trusted experienced advice
to say, you know what, we believe this specific tool,
this specific provider, whatever the original equipment manufacturer is, could
be the right solution given your budgets, given your mission.

(16:27):
You know, it's a very different drone that's going to service,
you know, to your point, downtown Manhattan versus rural Kansas, right,
a different type of mission, a different type of doan.
But all of that requires understanding of the regulatory space,
which is first and foremost right, the FAA is very
serious about controlling that those rules and rightfully so. Right

(16:51):
the nightmare is having one of your drones sucked into
a heat engine or you know, collide with a manned
air vehicle. So you really have to understand how to
navigate those those issues in those waters. And so they
sx exists to one council and provide, you know, advice

(17:17):
on how best to proceed, how to spend those precious
budgetary dollars and develop a program or two provide that
drone as a service, as we call it, right, actual
manned missions flown from our Global Operations Center remotely that
be on visual line of sight. Piloting is extraordinarily difficult

(17:39):
unless you have the right training, which is you know,
part of my job at DSX is running the training program.
I'm really excited about some things coming down the pike
there as well. Again to help our first responders and
those people out there who maybe aren't in public safety
but are concerned about being a professional pilot. We want
to make that same training available to them as well. Well.

Speaker 4 (18:02):
I'm envious of you to, you know, be able to
be in that kind of space right now, because it's
just so unique and so interesting and seeing how you
can make a major, major difference. I don't know about you,
but there's one thing that law enforcement sometimes will do,
especially even bigger agencies, where you'll buy a piece of

(18:23):
equipment before you really develop operational doctrine. And I remember
a time at the KBI. I was a Kansas Bureau
of Investigation agent and I was outsourced to DEA for
about five years. But while I was a KBI agent,
we we spent back then probably a couple hundred thousand
dollars on a very high end surveillance van and it

(18:48):
was high end, you know, it was something that was
a game changer, and it for the first three years
it worked great. But then the guy, the agent that
was in charge of it and knew everything about it,
retired and everybody looked around like, you know, how do
you what do you do now? You know, there wasn't

(19:09):
any redundancy in place. There wasn't anything that prepared, you know,
you just said, hey, I'm you know, I'm putting in
my papers and I'm going and here, and then for
about six months that thing set there until somebody could
get operationally you know, involved, and we didn't have any process,
you know, when nothing was written down on processes. It

(19:29):
was all and it was all you know, where that
one person had the information. And that brings again to
the importance of operational doctrine. So it's not just having
the equipment that you will have, but being able to
have up to date operational doctrine in which it's not
only the process the procedure, but just as important the

(19:53):
training and you you constantly improve and increase all those
areas of that operational doctrine.

Speaker 5 (20:03):
What, that's exactly right. You know, I had the great
privilege of starting my law enforcement career Fairfax County, Virginia,
one of the wealthiest counties in the United States, and
so we had all the toys and all the resources.
I was a canine handler, and there was nothing better
than having that you know, Bell helicopter above me providing overwatch.

(20:25):
And that was decades ago, but I was very you know,
I also had the great privilege in my career the
FBI of training some of the least funded, most underresourced
law enforcement agencies in the world, many of which are
here in the United States unfortunately, and those you know, poor,
you know, young men and women out there trying to

(20:46):
protect their communities without much support, certainly not a multimillion
dollar helicopter program. You know, This new technology, to your point,
is a game changer for those people. The ability and
you refer to having the drone go out ahead of time,
that is referred to as a drone as a first
responder DFR, and having that drone be able to dispatch itself,

(21:12):
fly to the scene, get there before the officer is
able to get there, get eyes on, and to your point,
really change the playing field, because now instead of as
you know, you and I would show up on a
scene decades ago if you didn't have air cover, you're
reacting in real time and no point and just having

(21:32):
to understand what is happening right and praying right now,
what we're seeing in those communities that do have this coverage,
we're seeing a very significant down play in the officer
involved violence. Right, So officer involved shootings are down, officer
involved violence is way down, like twenty thirty forty percent,

(21:56):
because those officers have the opportunity to formulate a plan,
maybe come in from a different angle, maybe call but
some backup before they show up, understanding and game planning
before they get there. And just as importantly as a
commander as a citizen, they're also seeing where, hey, you
know what, that fight has moved on, that s us

(22:18):
it's no longer there. There's no reason to send a
patrolman all the way across the county, saving those precious resources,
saving those gallons of gas. It really does add up,
and so it's a win for public safety. It's a
win for the safety of the public, and it's a
win for the finances of the public as well.

Speaker 4 (22:38):
Now I don't want to get into anything that you
may have developed specifically as a company because there may
be some trademark issues and things like that. So is
there the opportunity. So you spoke about situational awareness, which
is one of the most important things that officers can do.
But like anything we get, you know, we kind of
get tune death sometimes the situational awareness just because you're

(22:59):
on the job long enough and you forget the importance. Well, again,
that's important about having air cover and air support is
as a force multiplier when it comes to situational awareness,
and the beauty of it is before you physically arrive
at the scene, you can actually understand everything from how

(23:20):
many people there are there at the scene, maybe somebody
left and as you said earlier, it may not be
here anymore. You may have to go to this location
because the drone has said this person's now at this
park or you know, or wherever it may be. So
it plays an important part. But from the use of
the drones, there are other things that the drones can

(23:41):
do potentially someday and perhaps you're working on those. But
the ability to take notes through AI with what it's
seeing and be able to relay back in real time
to the command center of what's going on on the
ground and being able to say what the car is,
what kind of you know, this is the future of

(24:03):
working AI with drone capabilities together. Is the drone is
not only viewing a camera and seeing a camera angle
on something, but it could be in the future shipping
back information and real data that could be making color
a vehicle, license plate information that's not just relying on
the visual image, but it's actually collecting that data and

(24:27):
shipping it back. Is that something that you see in
the future that that could play a role? Oh, no question.

Speaker 5 (24:35):
And you know, to your earlier point as well, the
importance of consparency and accountability for our law enforcement office.
Think about how much the body worn camera a decade
ago and that really came into prominence. People thought, oh,
you're going to see You're going to see these these
officers that are you know, clubbing these people and are

(24:56):
heavy handed. Well it's just really the opposite. The vast
majority of the body worn camera told the story that
you know, the vast majority of police officers have tremendous
restraint and and for the public to be able to
see that with their own eyes. I also believe that
the drone, when it is recording and telling that story,

(25:18):
it's it's impartial. It's a machine. It is going to
tell the story as it is, not with the you know,
the imagination or the color or the or the you know,
trying to hide the ball that an officer might be
perceived to have. Now, this is a machine, right, it
is simply recording the facts. I'll call it the old
Joe Friday approach, right that that just the facts, man,
this is what happened. It's recorded, and that is what

(25:41):
the machine saw, whether you like it or not. So
I think we're moving into a time an era in
American law enforcement, hopefully world law enforcement that is unprecedented
in its transparency, in its trust. I know we're at
a low point unfortunately right now a lot of communities
for trust and law enforcement. But the only way we

(26:03):
get through that is through transparency. And the only we
get that is show me the videotape, and that's what
the public expects, and I believe that's what they're going
to get.

Speaker 4 (26:12):
Yeah, I love that. Now, I love that analogy that
you had on the video cameras. I was one of
the first sheriffs. This was like in mid two thousands
that actually staffed my folks with axon camera systems at
that time and nobody else had done it, and we
had some reluctancy on the part of some of the

(26:34):
deputies that were unsure because it was something new and
I get it, but it was a behavior modification modifier
because they knew that they were on. But the cool
part as it resulted in a reduction. We didn't have
very many uses of force because we too were a
wealthy county. Johnson County was one of the top twenty
five wealthiest counties in the United States. It's the center

(26:56):
of economic engine for Kansas and uh. But we had
a reduction of ninety percent use of force claims because
we had proof. Yeah, that's right out that the vast
majority of people complaining were making it up.

Speaker 5 (27:10):
Yeah, and I was the same thing. You're seeing that
at almost every law enforcement agency and now retail are
putting body worn cameras on their retail workers and it's
protecting them because it's recording. It's amazing what how well
behaved people are when they realize they're being recorded.

Speaker 4 (27:30):
Yeah, yeah, no question. So we're going to take a break.
We're at the bottom of the hour we've been speaking
with nationally. We're known trainer and now a general manager
with ds X. Right, that's correct, and we're going to
come back and speak more about this important program that

(27:52):
they have in technology. So we'll be right back.

Speaker 2 (28:07):
Hi, folks, Doctor Curry Myers here to let you know
that my new show, it's called America's Criminologist with doctor
Curry Myers every Tuesday at one pm. Is a former
State Trooper special agent share for a major county. I
will offer sharp insights into the pressing issues shaping American
society today. I'll have guests, news and my insights as
an applied criminologist throughout the one hour show. So criminals

(28:29):
and the progressive politicians that allow them to fester beware
because this show is directed at you. America's Criminologist Every
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Speaker 4 (30:40):
Hey, my friends, is doctor Curry Meyers, America's Criminologist. I
have a new sponsor for my show. I mean Real Resilience.
That's our ad L transformative program helping inmates prepare for
successful re entry and uses inspirational films and guided discussions.
Real Resilience teaches practical to to build resilience. It's really

(31:02):
an important tool, Real Resilience, because reentry isn't just released,
it's a second chance done right. All right, Welcome back
to America's Criminologists, and please remember you can view my
work on substack at doctor Currymeers dot substack dot com,

(31:23):
Doctor Currymeyers dot substack dot com. We have been speaking
with Rob Chadwieck. He's retired head of the Tactical Training
Unit at Quantico for the FBI and serves as a
princip and served as a principal instructor for the FBI.
He's now GM Public Safety and Defense at dais X Defense.

(31:47):
It's an integrated drone and GSOK and security operations company.
Thanks for again for coming back for the second segment.

Speaker 5 (31:55):
Oh thanks for having me. I always enjoy it.

Speaker 4 (31:58):
Great first half. I really enjoyed the conversation and but
but we didn't get a chance to cover training standards
as much and much as I would like to have.
So why don't you tell us about the the task,
the conditions, the standards that you have to take when
you get into this space, and how you can convince

(32:18):
law enforcement that you are well above trained and not
only well above trained, but you're going to continue to
train your people in that in the training and you know,
I'll be able to have updates and software and updates
and even potential drone equipment as you you know experience
uh time at the company.

Speaker 5 (32:41):
I appreciate that. And you know, you know my background
has been in training for so you know that my
time at Quantico was I couldn't believe me to do it.
And then uh, you know, even with the U s
c c A, when I, you know, head of training there,
I really understand and value the importance of training. And
you know, as I mentioned earlier, in this space, in

(33:03):
the drone space, especially in the public safety drone space,
it really is the wild West, the FAA is the
governing body of course, the Federal Aviation Administration, but really
their role kind of stops at part one oh seven,
your federal drone license, and that is not very difficult

(33:26):
to obtain anyone that can pass a written test that
you know, you most people take a test prep course, right,
and it's one of these you go in it's a
Procter test. You have to go into a testing center
set for it, and it's a sixty question test. And
if you pass it, I believe at eighty percent, a

(33:47):
few weeks later, get your little FAA you know, commercial
drone pilot's license. It's I sort of equate that to
your driver's license, right. It doesn't mean you're a really
good driver, it just means you're a legally author to
do so. And so, unfortunately, because this is such early days,
the ability to get high quality drone piloting skills training

(34:11):
is almost exclusively limited to in person training. And you know,
there's lots of people out there training to different standards
and so at DESX, my privilege is to is to
run the training cadre there and I've recruited some of
the some of the most respected names in the business
a guy named John Beal started a company or an organization,

(34:36):
not a company, an organization called LEDA Law Enforcement Drone Association.
John is first and foremost one of the most extraordinary
human beings you'll ever meet. The isis guys. I sat
and listened to him teaching, and he is an extraordinary teacher,
very well respected, and I can see why he's been
around the block. He started with LAPD and moved on

(34:56):
to several other organizations, was really an early intro into
the law enforcement drone space, and to his credit, along
with the other co founders of LEDA, saw a need
to professionalize and standardize and share best practices. And that's
exactly what we want to do. We want to take

(35:17):
that you know, sort of bootstrap shoestring, you know, effort,
and help these guys and girls that are out there
doing this really create what is, you know, a professional
standard and set the bar high. Right, It's all about
how you enter the space. And I think anyone who's

(35:38):
worth their salt, especially any pilot, and if you've ever
met a manned a vehicle pilot, almost all of them
are squared away, checklist oriented to do it the right way,
and so that's what we really want to translate that
into the unmanned aerial vehicle space. Right, it's the same thing.

(35:58):
You are flying, something that could be catastrophically dangerous if
done poorly, and so we want to share the experience,
the wisdom, the practical knowledge from not just Rob or
some of the So Rob Robertson is another friend of
mine that I've recruited into He's a contributor to what

(36:20):
we're doing. Rob is an incredibly knowledgeable person in the
FAA regulatory space. So John Beale and Rob and several
others of just real genuine practical experience in the drone
space we now have working with us, and we're trying
to set that bar high and make it really an

(36:41):
aspirational thing to be a professional public safety oriented drone pilot.

Speaker 4 (36:48):
So let's say that Let's say you're a sheriff in
a county of six hundred and fifty thousand and they
have yet to develop the They have the budget, so
the budget's not the issue. They have not developed drone
on their own other than occasionally taking something out of
their truck or their trunk. May so they might have

(37:11):
a sergeant, for instance, they might have a drone in
a per shift and that they use it that way,
but they haven't gotten to the to the point where
they're using drones significantly. And I say, this is probably
the vast majority of the nation right now. So taking
that area, it's again it's an urban area, wealthy urban area,

(37:34):
six hundred and fifty seven hundred thousand people, professional, well trained.
But what do you do and how do you do
it and what does it look like in the end
result for an agency like that.

Speaker 5 (37:46):
Yeah, so it is such a wide gamut, right, You've
got to whether I'll use my old agency. Fairfax County,
Virginia again well funded, they have one of the leading
DFR programs, they've got a real time crime center, they've
got remote piloting. They really do it right. And of
course they have, you know, hundreds of sensors, air deconfliction

(38:08):
sensors and air traffic control type of sensors that they're
operating off. Because they are flying beyond visual line of sight,
they cannot see that drone and deconflict it visually, and
so they're relying on sensors. You have to understand what
those capabilities are and what those limitations are, right, and
understand what happens in It's great to fly when everything

(38:31):
goes well, right, It's like driving your car, but what
do you do when the tire pops? What do you
do when you know that sort of someone swerves into
your lane of traffic. That's where we as an agency
want to, you know, create an opportunity for training in
a virtual setting. And so so we are partnering with
two of the biggest names in the virtual training space.

(38:54):
A company called Virtual Academy, which has been around for
quite some time. They provide training to public safety agencies.
They really specialize in that learning management system. I've known
you know, their founder, doctor Asar for quite some time,
admire and respect what they do. And also partnering with

(39:14):
a company called street Smarts VR, a virtual reality company
that specializes in that immersive training. And so what we
are partnering to do is create this repository of piloting skills,
you know, beginner advanced, super advanced type of piloting skills

(39:35):
where you can put people into scenarios, put people into
almost immersive training, and then measure how they do. It's
one thing just to play like a video game, but
there's a lot of value for an agency to be
able to look at the right how did that pilot react,
How long did it take to react when they had

(39:56):
a loss of signal when whatever it was, what emergedency
inject control and see is that person you know can
fly in blue sky and what happens when you have
a bird strike or something like that. You know, when
things go really wrong, you don't want you know, somebody
who's just a blue skypilot you want, I'll use you,

(40:17):
Captain Sullenberger. That's who you want. Fly that has been
through those you know, training emergencies and arguably save somebody's
life because they have trained to that task under these
conditions to a high standard.

Speaker 4 (40:32):
The next use of drones is drone against drone. From
a not just a warfare point of view, this is
my opinion, of course, but from a law enforcement point
of view. For the longest time, I always concern myself
on soft targets. I've studied different applications of soft targets.
What terrorists can do in the United States. UH, the

(40:55):
ability to use drones and deploy chemical biological agents in
the future explosively. Potitionally, explosives in the future are not
just something that's made up. It's the capabilities are there
for this to happen, and having drone drones to be

(41:15):
able to detect in advance and go fight the drones
before they come to a football stadium or the Olympics
or whatever it may be. Is that something that you
guys are beginning to say, Okay, the next step is
not just being out and doing control and not just

(41:36):
being reactive to support law enforcements or seeing what's going
on from intelligence, but actually have a threat and therefore
we have to go do some anti drone capability with
our own drones.

Speaker 5 (41:51):
Yeah, and now you're getting into you know, we've got
FIFA coming up here at the end of this month,
starting massive, you know, concerns from US security standpoint. The
real challenge there is the regulatory authority to interdict, to
interfere with what is an aircraft because right now, the

(42:13):
FA does not differentiate between you know, a hobbyist drone
flying around and a seven forty seven. Right, it's an aircraft.
You I and even you know, state and local authorities
for the most part do not have that designated authority
to interdict that and force that aircraft to the ground
in any capacity unless specifically authorized right now, and things

(42:38):
are changing rapidly, and I'm glad to see that, but
it's still so unclear and candidly, the capability is so
nascent in the United States in terms of counter drone ability.
I'm glad to see, you know, typical good old American ingenuity,
a combination of both non kinetic, so electronic jam and

(43:00):
that sort of thing, and then of course kinetic because
sometimes electronic jamming just isn't going to work. You're going
to have to have some sort of kinetic response capability.
But I want to highlight none of that is authorized
right now at the local level, and so that I'm afraid.
I hope that you know, Congress and you know, our

(43:22):
public safety authorities can come to an agreement before some
catastrophic event causes us, you know, sort of like nine
to eleven happened twenty five years ago. We all saw
it coming, it happened, and then things changed. My hope
is that you know, our public safety officials, our congressional
leaders can recognize this looming threat ahead of time and

(43:45):
take some proactive steps to designate and delegate those authorities
down from the feral level.

Speaker 4 (43:50):
Yeah, well, we can't ignore it, that's for sure, because
what we see on the battlefield comes to law enforcement
at some point when it comes to to tactical threats
and using it for crimeogenic purposes. So being able to
address it is very important. One. One another thing that
people are really concerned about is again privacy and public trust.

(44:12):
You know, wherever drones are discussed, privacy concerns emerge as
a result. How agencies should they how should they address it?
And by working with you do you address those needs
for law enforcement so you've got their back.

Speaker 5 (44:26):
Yeah. One of the things that I was very cognizant
of is of course, that civil liberty piece, and I'm
a tremendous you know, advocate for that and very concerned
as a private sets in myself. And so we do
have you know, resources that help explain the program, the
intent behind it, the guardrails around it for our law

(44:49):
enforcement clients and for our you know, for that matter,
for our private clients, to help explain here's what we're doing,
here's what we're not doing, here's how you can verify that.
A lot of it, as you know, comes in prepping
the battlefield, so to speak. Right, you want to talk
about it ahead of time before you just unveil this
program on your community, because there are going to be

(45:09):
lots of concerns. But if you have that very transparent
talk and are as upfront as possible about it, and
then give the community the ability to verify that, I
think that's where that trust comes in and they understand
the overwhelming need to involve. I know, a FLOCK, for example,

(45:30):
has come under a lot of criticism, and yet just
recently in Fairfax County, they had a road rage incident
where a guy gets out of a car and shoots
a guy in a bicycle, and it wasn't captured, you know,
by surveillance cameras. It was captured by a citizen who
happened to get that license plate. He called the police,

(45:51):
gave the license plate to the dispatch to fed it
into the FLOCK system, and within moments they were able
to track that fleeing south fact right, law enforce didn't
even know what had happened, and yet they were able
to track that suspect and apprehend who could have been
a real threat to the general society. They were able
to take him into custody without further loss of life.

(46:14):
And that use of technology, yes, I understand the privacy concerns,
but you know, having something scan license plates to me,
is not an invasion of privacy. You don't have a
right to drive on the road, I have a privilege
to do so. You have to have a valid license
to do so, and then a valid registration run through

(46:35):
a system exactly right, exactly right, So you know there's
always that balance. But really the public safety aspect of it,
there's so many positive examples that need to be highlighted
so people do understand why.

Speaker 4 (46:50):
Well, one of the things that's really important and it
kind of stands out because it's people see it. They
see people getting rescued. So when it comes to search
and rescue applications, this is where drone can can play
a valuable resource or either through thermal imaging perhaps and
locating missing children and we're missing people. Think about disaster,

(47:12):
think about the opportunity to help rescue somebody who's in need,
or maybe a first response. Have you have you guys
considered getting into the other first responder market like fire
and and ems where you're able to deploy, to deploy
even potentially you know, they make little bombs that can

(47:35):
make not bombs really but to be able to put
out you know, fires that kind of go into a
when you go into to a home, or let's say
somebody's you know, on a on a boat and you
can't get to them and you have to rescue them,
or they're they're stranded somewhere, they're in the mountains and
you can't get to it, and the helicopters down and

(47:57):
out of service. There's a huge role. For now, you're
not going to be able to necessarily pick them up yet.
That probably will come in the very near future if
it's already not here now, but you could at least
potentially give them life saving equipment and be in communication
with them and be able to pinpoint their exact location.

Speaker 5 (48:19):
No doubt. So imagine being able to deliver an EpiPen
to someone in an anaphylectic shock, an aed a tourniquet right, narcan,
all those types of medical injects. But also, you know,
to your point, what we're really finding is communities are struggling.
You know, tax dollars are precious, and what I've tried

(48:43):
to do is work with a municipality to say, you
know what, instead of having the sheriff's office or the
police department bear the entire burden of this very expensive
drone program. What about a shared services drone. You know,
most of the time that drone is not going to
be flying a life safety it's not going to be
flying a priority you know, criminal apprehension mission. Well, why

(49:04):
couldn't maybe the engineering department use it to go inspect
the dam or the bridge. Why couldn't parks and Rett
go inspect the grass fields or the top of the
water tower or whatever. The thing could be that that
there's so many uses, and the wise communities, the wise
municipalities are really finding ways to sort of spread that,

(49:27):
you know, burden and share the resource, you know, from
a from a central location. I think that is probably
the future of drone application in the public sector, is
the ability to say, you know what the town of
you know, Springfield in the middle of Kansas, maybe they
have a couple of drones and it's not just for
the police department, it's for the fire department, and for

(49:49):
the engineering department and for for everything else. You know,
inspect the roof of the school a couple of times
a year. Whatever it is that really you know, maximize
is the taxpayer value of that investment. From the community.

Speaker 4 (50:05):
You know, that's so wise. I completely agree with you.
I've done quite some extensive work work on critical infrastructure
and the potential problems associated with you know, exploiting critical infrastructure,
and these drones could play a one heck of a
role in not only patrolling criminal infrastructure, but seeing if

(50:29):
something's not working. So being able to go the length
of a railroad and report back, not only because railroad
crime is huge. I mean, you know, if you get
into railroad decks across the country or working cases all
the time, and especially in the urban sectors, there's so
much going on, but they could report back not only
the fact that there could be criminality that's going on,

(50:51):
but there could be places where the tracks may not
you know, be correct, or have some sort of damage.
And again, when you think of fire, being able to
respond ahead of that on the fire and be able
to send back to the fire department saying, hey, you
don't need a three you know alarm fire. It's it's
a one alarmer. You need seven you know, I.

Speaker 5 (51:13):
Mean well, and you also have the opportunity through you know,
like the multi spectral analysis. Let's say it's your utility
company that has miles and miles and miles of line
and transformers that might be getting ready to go bad.
You could inspect that ahead of time and save thousands
of dollars and hundreds of hours just by getting out

(51:35):
there ahead of that preventive maintenance piece. There's so many applications.
It is literally going to be a transformational technology for us.

Speaker 4 (51:42):
Yeah, reservoirs and dams. I mean, there's just so many
different things that that technology can be done easier and better. So,
I mean there's so many there are so many opportunities
for you all in this space. It's it's wonderful. So
one thing that stands out well about you all is

(52:02):
integrating drones, guards, sensors, cameras, and command centers into one
operating posture. And that's extremely important. So, but at the
same time, can it be overwhelming? So how do you
keep the the multitude of organizations that you have to
potentially watch, how do you keep that from overwhelming? Because

(52:23):
there's a lot of studies that when people are actively
engaged in more to than more than eight or so
different events or cameras, they lose some spatial capability. So
what do you guys do when you're building out these
things to make sure that they're that the folks are
not overly distracted by having too many joint operations that

(52:43):
are going on at one time.

Speaker 5 (52:45):
Well, the entire premise of DAX is that man plus
machine is superior to man or machine. I would I
would I would argue that the entire you know, operation
of man and guarding alone is broken, right, It's just
fundamentally flawed. It's really a staffing service. For the most part,

(53:07):
you have a guard who's sitting a post and if
something were to happen, especially an unarmed guard, which is
the vast majority of these guarding services, their job is
to call the police. And so you know, it's all
about time management and awareness and what we want to
do and what we have done is we've actually acquired
several large sophisticated manned guarding companies and now we are

(53:34):
augmenting those operations with DASA sex drone and ground based
robotics and sensor technology to make those guards so much
more effective. They're way more attentive, right, and so they
can be much more effective and expedient in their response
and judicious in their response.

Speaker 4 (53:55):
And me working for school districts where you maybe have
the ability to have air support for not just one school,
but they could it could go, it could work three
or four different schools. There's so many different things. And
again it's not just the security and safety side, but
it's providing overwatch but also seeing if there's a problem,
you know, seeing if there's a safety problem. So what

(54:19):
an amazing talk. I mean, quite frankly, Rob, this is
one of those topics that you can you can kind
of talk about all day long because of the future.
How do people follow your work? Please make sure and
let us know how to get your book, because I
think that's important too on the personal side, but from
the professional side, how do we follow uh dais and

(54:41):
keep up with you?

Speaker 5 (54:42):
I appreciate that. Sodas X Defense d U s xdefense
dot com is our website. I'm on LinkedIn that actually
has a link to the to the book. LinkedIn is
Rob Chadwick and it's DAIS X Defense. The book is
Practical Security Guide. Dot com is the landing page you
kind of tell you a little bit about the book.

(55:03):
I'm actually coming out with a new one here later
this summer, focusing on senior Americans and Americans with visual hearing,
and mobility issues how to keep themselves safe, because it's
a very different proposition for someone like that than it
is someone who has full mobility, good hearing, and eyesight,

(55:23):
and so I wanted to address that. I'm excited about
that book coming out. Maybe you and I can talk
about it when it does.

Speaker 4 (55:29):
Yeah, that'd be great. I'd love to have you back
on too, because you're a wealth of information not only
on this topic but all things law enforcement. So, my
brother Rob Chadwick, thanks so much for coming on the show.
Deeply appreciate it. God bless your work and my best
for you in the future.

Speaker 5 (55:46):
Well, thanks so much. I always appreciate the opportunity to
be with you, and I really appreciate what you do.
This show is important. The long form format allows us
to really get into those discussions, and I look forward
to the next time.

Speaker 4 (55:59):
Thank you by there, my friends, Thank you in America's Criminologist,
thanks for watching the show again. You can view my
work on substack at doctor Curry Myers dot substack dot com.
Stay safe and we will see you next week.

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