BERNALILLO COUNTY, N.M. – Bernalillo County Sheriff’s Office is teaming up with Skydio to launch the Drones as First Responder program.

“This is to help get you not just a faster response time, but more of a tactical advantage. And then you won’t have five or six deputies showing up, you might only have one, if any at all. That gives us all a huge more choices to pull from, to make sure that we’re handling each call appropriately,” said BCSO Sheriff John Allen.

BCSO says they have 20 drones that can go a thousand feet up. They can fly to where the call came from, and street names and addresses will pop up on the drone’s screen.

The drones will also have thermal cameras that can pick up heat sources like people or fires on the ground, which Allen says will also help firefighters and other agencies down the line.

“Our SWAT teams, special weapons and tactics and assist the New Mexico State Police all around the state,” Allen said.

The sheriff says they have 25 deputies trained to use these drones.

“If we have a burglary in progress, is if we have an organized retail crime, an auto theft, and the person leaves the scene before deputies arrives, this program that we are bringing will have the capability to ensure that we are following the suspect, making sure we’re de-escalating the situation,” said Allen.

Allen says the program will be a learning process.

“We want to make sure next that with the extends that we’re putting in deputy’s trunks, what weaknesses do we have around the county that we cover and other areas that we want to cover in the future? And how do we put that infrastructure to make sure if it goes down, or if we have a weak spot, what do we put in the middle to make sure that it’s not being so delayed,” said Allen.

Allen says this is a three to five year contract with Skydio.

During this legislative session, he’s asking for $8 million from state lawmakers. Half of which he is hoping to use for the program.