Drones to Monitor Crowds at Popular Spring Break Spot in Texas
In anticipation of larger crowds than in past years, city officials are using two drones to have a birds-eye view of the large gatherings of college students.
Law enforcement in South Padre Island, Texas, will use two drones it purchased to keep tabs on the college students on the beach.
SOUTH PADRE ISLAND, Texas — It’s no secret that spring break destinations struggle to contain large gatherings of college students. In order to combat that safety issue, law enforcement officials here are using two drones it purchased to monitor the crowds from a birds-eye view.
But there was one pressing question that city officials had to answer first: Could a college student knock down a drone with a can of beer? Likely not at the 250 feet the drones will hover above the beaches at, according to town spokesman Gary Ainsworth.
“That’s just something you have to expect when you have that many people letting loose on a beach and they notice a robot hovering over them,” Ainsworth said in a report by The Washington Post. “I probably would have tried to knock one out of the sky with a beer can when I was in college.” Most people who have been on a spring break trip would probably agree.
City officials are expecting larger crowds than normal this year due to Panama City Beach, Fla., banning alcohol consumption on its beaches during spring break.
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While bigger cities might have access to helicopters to control large crowds, police here have to use drones to get the same visual of the mass swarm of people.
“If you have an incident in a large crowd and you’re sending two officers into the middle of it, they’ve vastly outnumbered,” Ainsworth said, “and that’s before they have any idea of what’s going on.”
Drones could also follow a drunk college student that tries to run from police and could drop a life vest to a swimmer in distress.
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