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Sometimes a police officer's closest backup is watching from 500 feet in the air. It's the same pair of eyes that finds lost hunters and monitors possible terrorist targets. These cops in the sky are helicopter pilots. And authorities in the St. Louis area are working to get them airborne more often by combining the city and county helicopter units in the coming weeks. "In these economic times, we have to find other ways to fund the helicopter program or risk losing it," said St. Louis County police Chief Ronald Battelle. "This may be a first in a line of efforts to combine resources." The St. Louis city Police Board will discuss the alliance at its regular meeting today. The county Police Board reviewed the plan last week. Although St. Louis city and St. Louis County officials could not provide exact numbers, they say they expect both police departments to save money. And they expect to provide more air patrols for the area. "It's a tremendous asset to the region," Battelle said. Police say they use helicopters in countless scenarios: patrolling neighborhoods, searching for missing people, photographing crime scenes, surveying criminal activity, following stolen cars. If a suspect runs into a field, a helicopter crew can search the area in minutes. It would take dozens of officers to form a line and sweep the same area. "We can eliminate everything but the buildings as a possible hiding place," said Lt. Kurt Frisz, commander of the St. Louis County police flight operations. "Then officers on the ground can concentrate their efforts. It saves an enormous amount of manpower." But costs limit access to an aircraft for both police departments. "A helicopter is an expensive piece of equipment to keep up in the air," said St. Louis police Maj. Paul Nocchiero. "It's a maintenance-intensive kind of operation." Today both departments can call on a helicopter during an emergency 24-hours a day. It takes from 30 minutes to an hour to get one in the air. The helicopters now patrol the sky about 11 percent of the
time in the city and 23 percent in the county. The two departments will share their helicopters, pilots,
and money to keep a unit airborne every day. The St. Louis County helicopter program began in 1970. Its pilots and observers are members of the county police tactical team. The county department has purchased two helicopters and received two others for free from the U.S. Department of Defense. It uses two of the helicopters for patrol, one for training and the other for parts. City police have been flying since 1998. They got their helicopter, a Bell OH-58C (a Vietnam-era design called the Kiowa in military service), from the federal government as surplus. If the plan is approved, the city will move its aircraft from the ARCH Air Medical Services hangar near downtown to Spirit of St. Louis Airport in Chesterfield, where the county police keep their four helicopters and airplane. The departments will share the cost of a mechanic, saving money on outside contracting. Currently, the city spends about $50,000 a year on maintenance and the county spends $100,000. Officials also expect to save money by purchasing fuel through more than one vendor and by retiring one of the helicopters in the future. Each department will contribute four officers - both pilots and observers - to the unit. The observers control a spotlight, called a NightSun, and the heat-sensing camera mounted under the aircraft. They also monitor radio traffic for calls that need air assistance. The helicopter crews will respond to crimes in progress. They'll track suspects and provide light for officers on the ground. They also help find missing people such as young children or disoriented adults who wander from home. Patrol officers can call on the helicopter to assist during pursuits. "The helicopter can follow the stolen car, and police don't have to get involved in a high-speed chase," Nocchiero said. Helicopter patrols will check for suspicious activity at potential terrorist targets such as bridges, railways and utility plants. A crew can patrol the entire county and city in about two hours. In an emergency, they can fly from one end of the county to the other in seven minutes, Frisz said. The new partnership would give city police access to a county helicopter rescue team called the Special Operations Aviation Rescue team. It includes firefighters, paramedics, police officers and helicopter pilots. The team can be called to save a person trapped on the roof of a burning building or struggling in swift water. The new combined helicopter unit also will respond in emergencies to surrounding counties in Missouri and Illinois, Battelle said. Reporter Heather Ratcliffe
Eyes in the Sky: Jurisdictions Combine to Improve Helicopter PatrolsRyan Heinz
Helicopter pilot Jim Hilderbrand is none too happy with the outcome of the evening's events. He openly expressed his feelings as he settled in for a late-night cup of coffee in the ARCH Air Medical Headquarters break room. What's got the St. Louis County police helicopter pilot so frustrated is that moments earlier, a suspect he was chasing by air apparently had eluded police capture ... for now, anyway. "We did what we could. You're too hard on yourself, brother," his co-pilot, Korey Kline, reassured him. Although Kline and Hilderbrand share the cockpit of a helicopter, they have two very different jobs. While Hilderbrand does all of the flying, Kline checks the radios for incoming police calls, operates the massive spotlight (referred to by the pilots as a "night sun") and uses the infrared technology when needed. He also spends a lot of time looking out the window of the helicopter for suspicious behavior. Essentially, one flies and one's the eyes. Perhaps what's even more unique in Kline and Hilderbrand's differing roles is that while Hilderbrand is a St. Louis County police officer, Kline is a St. Louis city police officer. They are part of a new air support unit being shared by St. Louis and St. Louis County, which eliminates the respective agencies' boundaries in the sky and vastly improves the communication between the ground units. It also saves the taxpayers money while increasing the resources for all of the crime-fighting agencies involved. For example, prior to the city and county teaming up June 1 for one all-encompassing air support unit, each had one helicopter for use. Now, they have a total of four helicopters and one fixed-wing airplane at their disposal. As for St. Charles County, which soon will join the program, that jurisdiction had no air support unit at all. "It's working out very well, better than expected," said Capt. Kurt Frisz of the St. Louis County Police Department. "The underline for the entire program is it's going to be more cost-effective for these three agencies to provide air support because we're not duplicating efforts." Hilderbrand and Kline couldn't agree more. "We're ecstatic (with the program)," Kline said. "Once you talk to the captain, he's got us all excited. It just makes so much sense what we're doing." "There's a lot of positive feedback from the road officers from the city and the county." Hilderbrand added. "You no longer have that line in the sand — at least from the aviation standpoint." Hilderbrand and Kline were on a Friday 4 p.m. to midnight shift the day of the aforementioned chase. The duo had spent a good portion of the shift's first half grounded by severe thunderstorms. As the weather cleared, the pilots were ready to go up immediately after their dinner break. As night fell, the helicopter rose 700 feet to hide in the darkness and become the police department's all-seeing eye in the sky. Or as Hilderbrand simply put it when recounting the pursuit of a stolen Dodge Intrepid about a month earlier — in which the driver tried to avoid the helicopter — "You can't lose the helicopter." The night's action is anything but dull as the officers go from one incident to another — a stolen automobile here, a triple shooting there and even a small street brawl at one point. Sure, there is some downtime like most jobs, but there is rarely a lull in the air support unit. While scanning the different radio frequencies for more incidents and maintaining communication with various area airports to ensure shared airspace, the pilots take it upon themselves to scan the ground for any suspicious behavior. At one point, Hilderbrand spotted a couple of men standing in a dark, open junkyard lot. The helicopter was then turned about and Kline hit them with the spotlight to see if they would flee in guilt. Instead, the massive light pouring down upon them only bewildered the innocent, unsuspecting men. Just imagine if you were out casually chatting one night, then were hit with a light the power of 30 million candles. Of course, the greatest excitement for the night came from the call across the radio about a shooting targeting police officers. The helicopter then pointed in the direction of the ensuing ground chase and tilted forward into action. As it beelined across the city skyline and approached the chase, the feeling was that of Spiderman swinging into action. From a distance it could suddenly be made out that a pair of taillights was speeding and weaving throughout the Martin Luther King Drive traffic as that familiar red and blue flashing was in pursuit directly behind. Within a matter of seconds, the helicopter was bathing the suspect's car in light from the "night sun." A foot chase followed after the suspects drove their car into a yard and fled the automobile. The driver — who was also the shooter — and a passenger ducked under coverage briefly before Hilderbrand and Kline spotted the passenger as he ran down an alley. The passenger was followed from the air until ducking into a corridor between apartments and seeking shelter from the spotlight under a large cluster of trees. There he remained as the helicopter created a perimeter by encircling the area while police cars flocked to the scene. Suddenly, countless little lights popped up in the square section of land below as ground officers pulled flashlights from their belts to aid in recovering the suspect. Despite Kline's infrared search from 600 feet up that was penetrating enough to find a cat hiding between two pipes at a nearby facility, the passenger never turned up. Chances are he ducked into one of the nearby abandoned buildings, but after the having nabbed the shooter, the ground units were not going to go on a random search for the passenger. The passenger most likely would be caught within a couple of days. After all, another potential chase would only have put innocent bystanders in harm's way. Meanwhile, the helicopter needed refueling, so Hilderbrand and Kline reluctantly headed to the ARCH Air Medical Headquarters. Though Hilderbrand wanted to fly over the area one last time, it was time to end the shift. As the helicopter flew to its home base at the Spirit of St. Louis Airport in Chesterfield, the city and county now felt quiet below as midnight approached. To the listener on the radio, Hilderbrand offered a solemn "Good night, Bill." An unknown voice on the other end nonchalantly replied, "Good night, Jimbo."
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Bob Lasinski, helicopter mechanic for St. Louis County Police
Department, recently received the prestigious 2006 Technical
Specialist of the Year award, sponsored by the Airborne Law
Enforcement Association (ALEA). Bob is the only two-time
winner of the award in the history of the ALEA. This
award identifies and recognizes an individual whose efforts
or actions in maintaining or repairing aircraft operated
by a law enforcement agency were performed in extraordinary
manner, above and beyond what is normally expected, and have
brought distinction upon themselves, their department and/or
ALEA.
Copyright 2005, Metro Airborne Law Enforcement of St.
Louis, Missouri, U.S.A. All Rights Reserved
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