L-Ne · Historical Source Library

News Source Record

# News Source Record

**L-Ne / Open-source news extract** — Original media coverage of unmanned aerial systems.

| Field | Value |
| --- | --- |
| Collection date | 19 November 2015 |
| Platform | Quiet Systems |
| Data label | Open-source news record // LRRK collection product |
| Handling | Public-source material. Image rights require separate verification before publication. |
| Scale | Local |
| Language | English |
| Terms matched | unmanned aircraft; drones; unmanned aircraft systems; UAS; remotely-piloted vehicles |

## Bibliographic

| Field | Value |
| --- | --- |
| Outlet | Grand Forks Herald (Grand Forks, North Dakota) |
| Title | Event highlights use of unmanned aircraft by law enforcement |
| Dateline | Grand Forks, North Dakota |
| First publisher | yes |
| Original URL | https://www.newspapers.com/image/1136751006/?terms=UAS |
| Archive URL | — |
| Dedup key | 2015-11-19|grand-forks-herald|prairie-buzz-le-uas |
| Source grade | A1 |

## Pictures

- page: 2015-11-19-grand-forks-herald-uas-law-enforcement.jpg
- clips folder: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1vXHLTJaJN6V5eWhhGKAB_ObEa0zYttcd

## Record

**Verified extract — [Fact — A1]** Brandi Jewett of the Grand Forks Herald reported that a Walsh County missing-hunter search earlier this month put public-safety use of unmanned aircraft in the local spotlight. The Grand Forks County Sheriff’s Office flew the aircraft during the search for Grand Forks resident Travis Vorachek, one of several missing-person searches it has run with the technology. Al Frazier, a UND professor and sheriff’s deputy, told Wednesday’s Prairie Buzz audience that unmanned aircraft systems are another tool for officers and that the role in law enforcement will continue to expand. “It doesn’t matter what we call them, — unmanned aircraft, drones, (remotely-piloted vehicles) — they’re coming and they’re coming in a big way,” Frazier said. The Sheriff’s Office is part of the Northeast Regional UAS unit, which also includes officers from Grand Forks, East Grand Forks and UND’s police departments. Since becoming operational in May 2013 the unit has responded to 24 calls for assistance in the region, including searches for missing persons or suspects and photographing crime or traffic-accident scenes. Training includes burglary-at-business scenarios (roof access) because launching an unmanned aircraft over a building is more efficient than sending officers. The unit currently has a reactive approach; Frazier said officers also prepare for crimes in progress and pre-raid information-gathering. North Dakota legislators earlier this year passed a law requiring police to obtain search warrants before using unmanned aircraft for surveillance. A paragraph in the bill that Frazier said was read as allowing nonlethal weapons on the devices launched the bill into the national spotlight; doing so would be against the regional UAS unit’s policy, which specifically prohibits outfitting aircraft with chemical, electric and projectile weapons. “The sheriff and I are very strong proponents of not arming unmanned aircraft,” Frazier said. Luke Geiver, of a Grand Forks-based magazine and the event’s other speaker, said privacy is one area staff needed to tackle; Frazier told audiences that current laws likely already cover those infringements. Subhead: After being used to search for hunter, sheriff says drones help the public.

**Kinematic object.** Small public-safety UAS (Northeast Regional UAS unit — Grand Forks County Sheriff / Grand Forks / East Grand Forks / UND PD).

**Coverage frame.** law enforcement / regulatory

## Source integrity

- Why this is treated as an original: Grand Forks Herald staff byline on a local Prairie Buzz UAS/law-enforcement event and the Walsh County hunter search.
- Wire reprint status: Staff-written (Brandi Jewett). Not AP/Reuters/McClatchy.
- OCR / image-page caveats: Tesseract on a 4×8 cacheable-tile stitch of page 3. Hed, Frazier quote, unit membership, May 2013 / 24-call count, Vorachek search, warrant law, and no-arming policy are locked. Magazine title for Geiver is cut.
- What was excluded: Larry Humble obituary and Stone Soup civic-award package on the same People page.

## LRRK relevance

Watch / Passport. A Watch desk would have logged a four-agency regional UAS unit already at 24 public-safety sorties, a state warrant rule, and an explicit no-weapons policy after a hunter search.

*LRRK — security assurance for systems that sense, move, and act.*

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