Drone helps Howard Co. police track suspects in Christmas Eve car break-ins

The quick deployment of a drone helped officers in Maryland track down suspects accused of breaking into dozens of cars early Christmas Eve.

It was just before 5 a.m. when a call came in about a group of people who were stealing from cars in Ellicott City.

“Once police got there, they noticed that a white sedan, which was the car they later stopped, flee from the scene,” Seth Hoffman, spokesman for the Howard County Police Department, told WTOP.

Police said they chased the stolen car linked to a string of break-ins for a short distance until it crashed. Three people jumped out of the car and ran into the woods in the dark. But officers weren’t searching alone: A drone equipped with thermal imaging went up and quickly spotted heat signatures.

“Now you have an eye in the sky that has thermal imaging and other capabilities that’s able to locate these suspects and direct patrol officers to them,” Hoffman said.

The video shared by the police department shows officers closing in as the drone operator guided them: “I got a heat signal … looks like someone’s laying down right in front of you.”

Hoffman said the technology not only sped up the capture, but kept officers safe.

“Otherwise, they’re blind, especially in the middle of the night. They don’t see anything,” he said.

Howard County police have trained drone operators on every patrol shift, so the technology can be launched anywhere in the county within minutes, far faste...