Santa Monica police detected and arrested a man who was stealing vehicles from a parking lot near the pier using a drone.
On July 6, a Santa Monica police officer was directing the department's drone back to the station from a radio call when the officer decided to survey the Fourth of July weekend crowd near the pier and nearby parking lots.
As the drone flew over Lot 1 North, the parking lot next to the pier, it noticed a man wandering around the parking lot, according to a video the department posted on its YouTube account.
“As [the pilot] “As I watched, the subject approached an unoccupied parked vehicle, pulled tools from his sweatshirt and quickly picked the lock on the driver’s side door,” the department said in the video.
Drone footage shows the suspected thief breaking the lock on the driver's side door of a black SUV and then getting into the car.
He remained in the car for about two minutes, the department said.
While the man was inside the vehicle, the drone pilot called officers to the scene.
But before they could get there, the suspected thief got out of the truck and broke the lock of another vehicle, police said.
“The pilot was able to guide responding officers to the correct aisle in the parking lot where they found the suspected thief in possession of multiple stolen items and placed him under arrest for vehicle theft and several other theft-related offenses,” the department said.
The department's drone is part of a First Responder Program that uses a sworn officer pilot to fly the drone and can assist officers responding to the scene by checking for suspects fleeing the area and providing a direction of travel.
