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We can see it hovering in
the sky over the city, but what can the Garda helicopter see of us?
Catherine Cleary, Drugs and Crime Correspondent, joined the people who
police from the air
'Alpha Sierra Two, come in." It is 10.55 p.m. and the
woman's voice at Garda control interrupts coffee and a video of operations with
the real thing. There has been a robbery at an Xtra-vision shop in Castleknock
10 minutes earlier.
By 10.59 p.m. the helicopter is in the air. Without two
extra passengers they can do it in less than three minutes.
The radio code for the Garda Air Support Unit helicopter,
Alpha Sierra Two, is already well known to those who drive stolen cars around
the city.
One youth is said to have pulled up to the pavement in a
stolen BMW when he heard on his scanner that the helicopter was being
scrambled. Gardaí said he simply got out of the car and walked
away.
Thursday had been a good day. Earlier they had been called
to follow two people suspected of stealing a motorcycle. The suspects were
arrested. The Kawasaki was returned to its owner. He hadn't even realised it
had been stolen.
Flying over Castleknock, the sergeant in charge, Dermot
Mann, and his colleague, Garda Joe O'Flynn, have more details of the suspects.
On the ground the patrol-car has patched into the helicopter and is asking them
to search an area of waste ground.
The weather has deteriorated and the thermal imaging
camera is showing a murky grey picture on the screen. Anything that gives off
heat is picked out as a white blob.
Some white glows are quickly identified as chimney stacks.
Then the helicopter moves round to get a better view of a large white object.
It could be two or three people.
The powerful night-sun searchlight is switched on. "It's a
horse," three voices say in unison as the animal starts to run.
"Kilo Charlie One, there's nobody in the back of the
graveyard," Sgt Mann says, talking to the unit on the ground.
Then a mist comes down and the helicopter is forced to
return to base at Baldonnel. They are frustrated, but the weather rules.
In the five months since it started operations the Garda
Air Support Unit has been involved in 1,115 tasks. One hundred and seven people
have been arrested as a result of joint operations with Air Support and
gardaí on the ground. Seven missing people have been found and 65
vehicles recovered.
On a daylight flight yesterday it was possible to focus on
one street, using both daylight camera and thermal imager.
The thermal image could show which car had parked most
recently by the heat of the engine. Those houses that had their heating on
could also be picked out.
The twin Squirrel helicopter accounts for most of the
tasks, with the fixed-wing Defender aircraft, referred to as Alpha Sierra One,
used for longer flying operations outside Dublin.
They have started compiling a video of successful
operations for training gardaí on how the air unit works. One of the
videos shows the thermal imager picking out a white figure on a river bank as
two other figures move towards it.
All three move away from the bank together. This was the
rescue of a disturbed woman from the bank of the Liffey on a cold night last
month.
Gardaí were searching the banks after a 999 call
that a woman had been seen in a distressed state. Located by the helicopter
hovering over the Strawberry Beds, the gardaí in the air talked their
colleagues on the ground to the woman.
In a daylight operation on a Sunday morning a BMW is shown
speeding down the M50, passing cars on the inside lane before hitting the verge
and crossing the central reservation on to the opposite dual carriageway.
Two men jump out and run across fields, followed by the
helicopter. A voice in the helicopter directs gardaí into the housing
estate. One of the youths is caught in a back garden. The other hides behind a
shed until he is arrested. The garda on the ground gives a thumbs-up to the
helicopter.
Fifteen men and one woman, four sergeants and 12 of garda
rank, make up the unit, led by Supt Nacie Rice.
The helicopter and plane are flown by Air Corps pilots
assigned to the unit. The camera is on a pod at the front of the helicopter. At
the rear there is a night sun-torch, said to be powerful enough to light up a
football pitch.
They work in shifts from 7 a.m. to 1 a.m., with people on
call the rest of the time. Both aircraft are able to communicate with
individual gardaí, patrol-cars and stations.
An encrypted radio signal is used for secure contact with
Garda units like the Emergency Response Unit. They do not patrol in the
helicopter as it can only fly for hours on a tank of fuel. "We could be up for
two hours and 20 minutes and then get a call and not be able to respond because
we have to refuel."
Two videotapes, a master and a back-up, record operations
from the sky. The master is sealed as evidence to be used in any court
proceedings, and the copy can be shown to gardaí on the ground in
advance of a prosecution.
It is a different kind of policing. As the voices from the
air, the unit gardaí are not part of the camaraderie of a station, where
a successful operation might be celebrated that night.
"There is an adrenaline rush from being responsible for
someone getting caught that you know would have got away. You get the rush, but
it's in a different form."
And, yes, the Garda Air Support Unit can see your face
from the sky, if they are at the right angle. The camera can read number
plates, also depending on the angle.
There have been complaints from people who may have been
woken by the noise and light of a search at night.
"We reply to them in writing," Sgt Mann said. "Usually
when we explain that there was a robbery in their area and we were looking for
the suspects people have no problem."
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