A Birmingham schoolgirl has won a competition to name one of the police drones, which will be used to help fight crime across the West Midlands.
Earlier this year, Sergeant Keith Bennett and PC Jon Martin asked 10 schools across the region to take part in a competition to name 10 of the West Midlands Police’s (WMP) drones.
This week, the first drone was named and offices visited the school for an extra special treat for the winner and all of her school friends.
The pupils got a visit from the Drones team and a close up view of just some of their drones, before the winner was announced.
After hundreds of entries and careful consideration, the name ‘Phoenix’ was chosen by the Drones team for the new name for the DJI Matrice 300.
Ke-Xin, aged 10, from Bells Farm Primary school, who chose the name, said she did so because she thought a police drone needed a really special name, just like the mythical creature.
“The children were so excited when they came back into school. It has been our one and only “face to face” whole school event for this year so it was very kind of you to present Ke-Xin with her framed competition entry to keep – she will treasure it, I’m sure.”
Phoenix, which is one of the latest of WMP’s high tech gadgets, is able to stay in the air for up to 55 minutes and is also waterproof, enabling it to be used during the bad weather. It has already been flown for 140 hours in the six months of its life and is used to help find vulnerable or missing people, track suspects, capture evidence at crime scenes and provide aerial footage at events such as protests.
Drones are a huge asset to the force and are now used 24/7. They are also playing a big part in the security planning for the upcoming Commonwealth Games.
The West Midlands Police and Crime Commissioner, Simon Foster, said: “These drones can go where officers can’t and are an excellent tool in helping us catch criminals and finding missing vulnerable people.
“I’m pleased that some of this funding has come from proceeds of crime that we have taken from criminals and are now putting to good use to help us prevent crime.”
WMP are always looking to be innovative in the way they work with the aim of keeping the streets safe and catching criminals.
The drones are an excellent addition to police kit in the fight against crime and this year alone they have been deployed to more than 2,000 incidents.
Drones are being used to keep the public safe and catch criminals and bought with cash seized from criminals.
You can follow more on the drones on twitter @dronesWMP and will be able to follow the journey of phoenix by following the twitter hashtag #pheonixthedrone to see all of its deployments.
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