How Ocean City police's new drone unit is keeping the Jersey shore safe

OCEAN CITY, New Jersey (WPVI) -- After months of planning, the Ocean City Police Department's new drone program has launched.

Lt. Mark Pancoast heads up the unit with three drones and five FAA-certified pilots.

"Officer safety, public safety, using it efficiently and more importantly, actually using it," said Pancoast.

On Wednesday, Action News got an up-close look at the unit and how it works.

Police say within a week of launching the drone program, they've used them for multiple incidents.

In one case, they were called to help find a missing person in a creek near Woodbine.

"We were able to find him within the first couple of minutes," said Pancoast.

In another case, aerial nighttime video provided by Ocean City police shows officers responding to an unconscious woman on the beach. Police say they found her using thermal cameras on their new drones.

And over the weekend, police used a drone to track down several suspects in a car allegedly stolen out of Camden County.

In that case, police say six teens between the ages of 13 and 16 were arrested. All of them are being charged with possession of stolen property and other offenses.

Another new drone feature allows the incident commander on the ground to pull up the live image from the drone on a laptop and also view body cameras.

"If there's a situation where there's multiple officers on location, the incident commander can activate multiple body cameras at the same time," said Pancoast.

He wants to spread the word about this new program so people aren't surprised when they see them.

"Showing the back scenes of it, there's nothing hidden or nefarious that we're doing with these drones," he said. "They're there for public safety."

Given the crowds that have gotten unruly at times on the boardwalk, Pancoast says they will use the drones to keep an eye on the beach and boardwalk areas on the weekends.

He hopes to expand the program with more trained pilots in the future.