Delta Police first to use tracker darts in high-speed car chases
Posted February 18, 2016 7:19 am.
Last Updated February 19, 2016 7:20 am.
This article is more than 5 years old.
DELTA (NEWS 1130) – They’re often dangerous and can end in tragedy. High-speed pursuits have become too common in Delta so police there are introducing new technology to help them rein in the drivers.
Police Chief Neil Dubord says StarChase technology is important to what they do.
The department saw a spike in the number of drivers failing to stop for police in the first half of last year.
“Last year we had a number of shootings in the Delta and Surrey areas where these vehicles, once we tried to stop them being operated by hardened criminals and sometimes gangsters, wouldn’t stop after we activated our overhead lights.”
The department considered using the technology following that uptick in crime.
“If a police car is following someone who they think might flee from the police and not stop, and we would shoot, what’s called a dart. It’s not actually a dart, it’s a big sponge that has GPS technology tracker in it that allows us to disengage from any police pursuit and be able to follow a vehicle.”
“It allows the police to back right off and not have to pursue at all and to be able to track that vehicle by a mapping device and that mapping device would show where that vehicle stops and then we can just pick up that vehicle,” explains Dubord.
The department is the first in Canada to use StarChase and will have it on eight police cars by this summer.
The Abbotsford Police Department has ordered the same technology — it’s simply waiting for it to be installed.
