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Sunbury police outline school resource officer duties and drone program’s emergency uses
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Summary
At the Feb. 18 Sunbury City Council meeting, deputy police leaders and School Resource Officers described monthly safety drills, counseling and traffic work in district schools and recounted drone deployments that aided building collapse assessment, searches and event security.
Deputy police leadership and members of Sunbury’s School Resource Officer (SRO) and drone teams briefed the City Council on Feb. 18, describing routine school safety work and several instances where drones provided critical operational support.
Officer Whiteside told the council he is assigned to Big Walnut Elementary and Big Walnut Middle School and outlined day‑to‑day duties including monthly ALICE drills, building safety checks, helping install security cameras and relationship‑building with students through recess and lunchroom presence. "We do building safety checks...we do those each month," Whiteside said, noting Big Walnut Elementary serves 289 students with about 50 staff.
Officer Belcher described work at General Rosecrans Elementary and Big Walnut Intermediate, saying the role focuses on early‑grade safety education, well‑being checks and de‑escalation. Belcher said staff and students increasingly rely on SROs for quick referrals to counseling and other supports and that call volumes at the elementary level remain low.
Council members and staff praised the SROs for connecting students to resources and for cooperative work with the city’s engineering and service departments on traffic and safety improvements around school sites.
The drone team described its fleet and mission. Officer Brandon Ramirez and colleagues said the department operates a DJI M30T as its primary outdoor platform and an Avada interior drone for confined spaces. Recent hardware additions include a drop kit and an inflatable flotation device that expands on contact with water, which the team said enables safer water rescues. "Once it hits water, it'll actually expand into a flotation device," one presenter said.
Presenters showed examples where drones aided public safety: overhead coverage for a large vigil that supported tactical units, aerial assessment of a roof collapse that helped the fire department determine whether it was safe to re‑enter a structure, and locating a person during a mental‑health call who had left the roadway and would likely not have been visible from a cruiser. The team also described trials of crash‑reconstruction software that can recreate scenes from aerial imagery to support investigations.
Council members said the technology has improved emergency response and planning work and thanked officers for the program. Staff noted ongoing evaluation of staffing, software and equipment needs as the team seeks to add operators and an interior drone to increase redundancy and capabilities.
The council did not vote on the presentations; the briefing was presented for information and follow‑up at future meetings is anticipated.
