I find it interesting that the question is "why don't they use drones". My question is: why so much air surveillance? I live in Germany. The only times I hear a helicopter is if someone is being rescued or if someones missing. I rarely see them at all.
There are high speed police chases (100mph+) in Los Angeles — no exaggeration — on an almost daily basis. Air support is the primary defense tool for law enforcement.
It's so bad that the local TV stations have their own choppers and a dedicated on-screen UI tailored for the chases with GPS-based tracking and speed.
I suspect it has something to do with LA's large footprint. Comparing to where I'm from in Chicago, LA county is over 4x the land area with less than 2x the population:
Don't know how the math works out exactly, but if they don't have the workforce to cover their patrol area with squad cars, there's probably an argument to be made for covering gaps with areal support. Given that Chicago struggles with workforce shortages, I can only imagine how much worse it'd be if you had to cover 4x the area with half the tax base.
They're not usually doing surveillance on people, they're mostly used as a quick way to get eyes overhead when something else is happening--foot pursuit, high speed pursuit, just about anything really where an aerial perspective might be helpful. They can fly anywhere in LA pretty quickly.
> My question is: why so much air surveillance? I live in Germany. The only times I hear a helicopter is if someone is being rescued or if someones missing.
Where in Germany though? Helicopters tend to be more popular to use for various purposes in very densely populated places, like Hong Kong or New York City, but you don't really see them much in rural areas except for emergencies.
They bought them and spent a lot of money on supporting infrastructure and are therefore compelled to use them when they chase a middle aged drunken homeless man through a neighborhood.
The difference between rich and poor is way bigger in the USA it's been growing and growing since Ronald Reagan, while in Europe it has stayed basically the same.
On average, the city spent an average of $46.6 million on the program, the audit disclosed. It also found that there is limited oversight or monitoring of the division, its policies and practices and whether the program is in line with the city's safety needs. [...]
The department has 17 helicopters and over 90 employees. [..] The city operates their helicopter fleet on a nearly "continuous basis" [..] The total translates to more than $2,900 per flight hour. [...]
Additional findings in the audit disclosed [..] 61% of the flight time was in fact dedicated to low-priority incidents like transportation, general patrols and ceremonial flights — like a fly-by at a local golf tournament, roundtrip transportation of high-ranking LAPD officers between stations and passenger shuttle flights for a "Chili Fly-In."
LAPD flies quite recklessly especially downtown, where they aren't even clearing the buildings. News choppers fly much higher, well over the skyscrapers, and have no problems getting very tight shots on whatever subject there is down there.
If you follow them on ADS-B you see they really aren't used that frequently at all for calls and end up in holding patterns with nothing to do really before flying somewhere else for a new holding pattern, until their shift is up presumably.
Living in LA, the LAPD helicopter noise really is incessant.
It's hilarious to hear flying cops try to be intimidating through when dispersing illegal concerts or singling individuals out in non-violent crowds. It's impotent posturing and an obvious waste of money. They really don't need to send 5 squad cars and a helicopter for noise complaints.
I will say though that the loudspeaker on those things are surprisingly clear, even through the buzzing of a helicopter.
Down in SD at least, the sheriff's office helicopters serve many purposes. They'll use them for firefighting, hike rescues (often! according to their IG), first responder to an aviation accident, loudly shouting garbled messages through their loudspeaker, etc.
There's just enough high-speed/timely crime here that I prefer they use these over drones. There's some extra legal protections built into helicopters that drones don't get, like prison time if some idiot points a laser pointer.
I was in Santa Monica - the dense part with all the alleyways - during a foot pursuit involving a heli. Felt like I was in vietnam. It was at night, they were pretty low, and that light felt like the sun coming into the building.
To those not familiar with LA or the USA, here’s a cultural time capsule from 2Pac circa 1996:
“ It's the, City of Angels and constant danger
South Central L.A., can't get no stranger
Full of drama like a soap opera, on the curb
Watchin' the ghetto bird helicopters, I observe”
Well the danger part has decreased a lot. It peaked at almost 100 per 10k people in the 90s, and now it's closer to 25. Still very high, but a lot of progress.
I was wondering because I remember the last time I lived in Los Angeles in 2009 I went to a Lakers championship parade and talked to one of the cops assigned to crowd control, and asked about it when a helicopter flew overhead. She told me it's a great job a lot of them try to get because even 20 years ago they were starting out at something like $215,000 a year and were not expected to have any flight experience. The city just trained up regular patrol officers and tripled their pay.
The way they fly you can tell they don't have a lot of flight experience. Really low compared to news choppers following the same pursuit. Juvenile even, at times (1-4)
This is the kind of government waste that needs to be highlighted. Police forces consume a massively disproportionate amount of resources from our cities.
Lawsuits are most of the money in LA. Juries love to think they're sticking it to the police, but it just comes from a different fund that extracts from a lot of other departments. The LA City Controller is making great attempts at outreach: https://controller.lacity.gov/data
Ad in the bottom left covers the UI when expanding the menu out.
I'm sure it depends on screen resolution etc but I'd love to be able to click links to the data sources.
Overall an interesting idea. I'd love to know the data source for the cost of the operation of the aircraft. Would be really interesting to connect a database of all aircraft types then present the ability to watch the cost of like "all American Airlines flights currently flying" or "all US military aircraft".
Kenneth Mejia, our progressive, data-driven controller audited LAPD helicopter use, and published his findings.
"The ASD program costs nearly $50 million annually while most of the flight time is not devoted to high priority events. Our audit found that the estimated annual cost to operate the helicopter program is $46.6 million (i.e., $127,805 per day or $2,916 per flight hour). There are 14 City departments whose annual budgets do not reach this amount;"
It's just a matter of striking a balance between "what a waste" and "what a lack of law and order". So, like a pendulum swing, cut down all spending drastically, until people scream "where is government?" and then swing backwards, until they cry "what a waste". Keep swinging back and forth until you find the local minima. Wait, am I talking about gradient descent?
What are the necessary capabilities? My city has no helicopters or drones. There's a medical chopper that flies over my house regularly, but it has an obvious purpose.
Blue Thunder wasn't just B-movie conspiracy theory paranoia porn but also contained a warning about technology authoritarianism and invasion of privacy, and police over-militarization.
During the summer of 2017 Denmark flew hourly surveillance helicopters and military SIGINT aircrafts over Copenhagen to stop Sweden-like gang shootings. It was expensive but worked.
Roughly a dollar a second which if you are a theater kid you know is about
$31,536,000 mil a year.
Honestly not that bad considering it provides a real service. I mean how much does the city spend on lawsuits against corrupt cops and other employees. According to the budget something like $300 MILLION on lawsuit payouts last year alone.
Who gives a $hit about the helicopters. Build an app that tracks the employees causing these lawsuits that are still keeping their jobs.
People know what to do to get away from the helicopter and they have been successful at it. Two chases in one week this past august the suspect shook off the helicopter and got away. It is as easy as driving under an overpass or into protected airspace. In one case this past month, they followed a suspect all the way into san diego and allowed them to cross the border into Mexico where they were lost.
That's if it's one helo at a time. If it spikes to 2+ then the numbers go up way faster. They have 16 total and I would assume 1/3rd can go up at a moments notice
BadBadJellyBean|3 months ago
shoddydoordesk|3 months ago
It's so bad that the local TV stations have their own choppers and a dedicated on-screen UI tailored for the chases with GPS-based tracking and speed.
If you're lucky you can catch one of the many YouTube live streams. Here's one from....two days ago: https://www.youtube.com/live/uGiJU-FlpdE
Aurornis|3 months ago
Same for me, but I live in America.
The specific location matters a lot. The LA area is more population dense and bigger than might be obvious.
To put it in perspective, the GDP of the LA area is about 1/4 as much as the GDP of your entire country.
h14h|3 months ago
https://www.comparea.org/r122576+r396479
Don't know how the math works out exactly, but if they don't have the workforce to cover their patrol area with squad cars, there's probably an argument to be made for covering gaps with areal support. Given that Chicago struggles with workforce shortages, I can only imagine how much worse it'd be if you had to cover 4x the area with half the tax base.
jjwiseman|3 months ago
aleph_minus_one|3 months ago
Relevant German song concerning this mentality:
Foyer des Arts - Hubschraubereinsatz (1982)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2pAr1IMiP6A
Here is some video of the song that also shows the lyrics:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ykRB9SVlDhU
nmeofthestate|3 months ago
sharts|3 months ago
embedding-shape|3 months ago
asdff|3 months ago
potato3732842|3 months ago
jurschreuder|3 months ago
throwaway48476|3 months ago
mgraczyk|3 months ago
0xbadcafebee|3 months ago
tclancy|3 months ago
throwaway5465|3 months ago
Much of which flows directly back into the local economy through wages spent and maintnance paid.
asdff|3 months ago
https://old.reddit.com/r/LosAngeles/comments/1oolm68/lapd_he...
LAPD flies quite recklessly especially downtown, where they aren't even clearing the buildings. News choppers fly much higher, well over the skyscrapers, and have no problems getting very tight shots on whatever subject there is down there.
If you follow them on ADS-B you see they really aren't used that frequently at all for calls and end up in holding patterns with nothing to do really before flying somewhere else for a new holding pattern, until their shift is up presumably.
bigiain|3 months ago
Cynical-me assumes those are the ones running stingrays/imsi-catchers.
maxbendick|3 months ago
It's hilarious to hear flying cops try to be intimidating through when dispersing illegal concerts or singling individuals out in non-violent crowds. It's impotent posturing and an obvious waste of money. They really don't need to send 5 squad cars and a helicopter for noise complaints.
I will say though that the loudspeaker on those things are surprisingly clear, even through the buzzing of a helicopter.
ripberge|3 months ago
These needs should be filled by drones. Way less noisy, dangerous and expensive.
kylehotchkiss|3 months ago
There's just enough high-speed/timely crime here that I prefer they use these over drones. There's some extra legal protections built into helicopters that drones don't get, like prison time if some idiot points a laser pointer.
monkaiju|3 months ago
whalesalad|3 months ago
DiscourseFan|3 months ago
polalavik|3 months ago
QuiEgo|3 months ago
“ It's the, City of Angels and constant danger South Central L.A., can't get no stranger Full of drama like a soap opera, on the curb Watchin' the ghetto bird helicopters, I observe”
Pretty much still sums it up.
smt88|3 months ago
nonameiguess|3 months ago
I was wondering because I remember the last time I lived in Los Angeles in 2009 I went to a Lakers championship parade and talked to one of the cops assigned to crowd control, and asked about it when a helicopter flew overhead. She told me it's a great job a lot of them try to get because even 20 years ago they were starting out at something like $215,000 a year and were not expected to have any flight experience. The city just trained up regular patrol officers and tripled their pay.
asdff|3 months ago
1. https://old.reddit.com/r/LosAngeles/comments/1oolm68/lapd_he...
2. https://www.threads.com/@kilodelta/post/C5m373ZOX9Q
3. https://preview.redd.it/jcfdph3aiczf1.jpeg?width=1164&format...
4. https://preview.redd.it/dl7lqa2blbzf1.jpeg?width=1206&format...
rimbo789|3 months ago
scottyah|3 months ago
bronco21016|3 months ago
I'm sure it depends on screen resolution etc but I'd love to be able to click links to the data sources.
Overall an interesting idea. I'd love to know the data source for the cost of the operation of the aircraft. Would be really interesting to connect a database of all aircraft types then present the ability to watch the cost of like "all American Airlines flights currently flying" or "all US military aircraft".
polalavik|3 months ago
getpost|3 months ago
"The ASD program costs nearly $50 million annually while most of the flight time is not devoted to high priority events. Our audit found that the estimated annual cost to operate the helicopter program is $46.6 million (i.e., $127,805 per day or $2,916 per flight hour). There are 14 City departments whose annual budgets do not reach this amount;"
https://controller.lacity.gov/landings/lapd-helicopters
VerifiedReports|3 months ago
Hm, now on reload it shows a whole map... but if you zoom in it resets it and zooms out by itself at intervals.
andy99|3 months ago
zkmon|3 months ago
LeoPanthera|3 months ago
insane_dreamer|3 months ago
zobzu|3 months ago
AIorNot|3 months ago
https://youtu.be/LXg5Pu-yZrE?si=DFYPLVCBjYVi7a_g
dsamarin|3 months ago
analog31|3 months ago
burnt-resistor|3 months ago
almost_usual|3 months ago
mwkaufma|3 months ago
frizlab|3 months ago
MathMonkeyMan|3 months ago
ninininino|3 months ago
polalavik|3 months ago
asdff|3 months ago
walterreid|3 months ago
[deleted]
NullCascade|3 months ago
During the summer of 2017 Denmark flew hourly surveillance helicopters and military SIGINT aircrafts over Copenhagen to stop Sweden-like gang shootings. It was expensive but worked.
swrobel|3 months ago
citizenpaul|3 months ago
Honestly not that bad considering it provides a real service. I mean how much does the city spend on lawsuits against corrupt cops and other employees. According to the budget something like $300 MILLION on lawsuit payouts last year alone.
Who gives a $hit about the helicopters. Build an app that tracks the employees causing these lawsuits that are still keeping their jobs.
asdff|3 months ago
dgrin91|3 months ago
unknown|3 months ago
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