Residents See It Circling for 5 Hours, Now Police Won't Comment
Residents in and around the Phoenix, Arizona, metropolitan area may have noticed something unusual in the skies above the city on Thursday.
That unusual sight was an airplane circling the metro area for at least five hours nonstop, which caused concern among some citizens and sparked all sorts of theories as to what it was doing, according to KNXV.
The media outlet noted that a common use for the aircraft was in tracking and pursuing suspects fleeing suspects from the air in order to allow ground units to back off in a potentially dangerous high-speed chase.It was eventually admitted that the aircraft belonged to the Phoenix Police Department, but officials were rather tight-lipped as to what the aircraft was actually doing for so many hours.
The police would only state that the plane was either taking part in a training mission or engaged in assisting an active investigation, in which case they would be unable to provide further comment.
Considering there doesn’t appear to have been any further statements issued from the department regarding the circling aircraft, it was presumably involved in the latter explanation of an active investigation. But some residents are still demanding answers, given the length of time the plane was circling the city.
In August of 2017, The Arizona Republic took an investigatory look into the use of airplanes and helicopters by local, state and federal law enforcement agencies in the Phoenix area.
They noted that these aircraft were typically used to provide assistance in search and rescue operations as well as in supporting officers on the ground in potentially dangerous situations, such as tracking a fleeing suspect.
But some of the aircraft known to be equipped with high-tech cameras and sensors have also been used to conduct aerial surveillance, within the bounds of the Fourth Amendment and a respect for the privacy of citizens, of course.
“We don’t focus on run-of-the-mill people,” Phoenix police Chief Pilot Paul Apolinar told the newspaper. “We focus on career criminals.”
Out of the dozens of law enforcement aircraft that fly above the metro area, the Phoenix Police Department is known to operate five helicopters and four airplanes, with those craft flying an estimated 1,600 hours in 2015, according to public records and data obtained by The Republic.
The media outlet noted that a common use for the aircraft was in tracking and pursuing fleeing suspects from the air in order to allow ground units to back off in a potentially dangerous high-speed chase.
With no cops visible in the suspect’s rear-view mirror, a suspect may assume the coast is clear and either head home or engage in another crime — all while being observed from an eye-in-the-sky they aren’t even aware of.
But if there was no major high-speed chase through Phoenix on Thursday, what else could be the reason for a Phoenix police plane to be circling the city for hours on end?
Well, as it turns out, one of those planes operated by the Phoenix police is outfitted with a state-of-the-art Star Safire HD FLIR camera, which has been billed as the “world’s first full high-definition multi-spectral imaging system.”
The forward-looking infrared camera, which utilizes thermal imaging, is capable of clearly zooming in objects that are up to 10 miles away and uses a laser designator similar to those on military drones that track missiles in order to keep the camera pinpointed on its target.
To be sure, there are strict policies in place regarding any video footage obtained by the aircraft, and any footage deemed to have no evidentiary or training purposes are purged from archives within a certain amount of time, to ensure privacy concerns are addressed.
Nevertheless, some residents are hoping the Phoenix police department will be a little more forthcoming with the public about exactly why one of their planes was circling the city for roughly five hours one day last week.
Please share this on Facebook and Twitter if you too wish that law enforcement agencies would be more open with the public when their operations in and above a major metro area garner plenty of notice.
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