Sheriff's helicopter unit may be model for region

Last year, the deputy-pilots who make up the King County Sheriff's Air Support Unit spent nearly 1,000 hours in the air, patrolling the Port of Seattle, scouring the Cascades for lost hikers and aiding other police agencies in tracking down suspects and gathering evidence.

On Friday, a new policy went into effect that is expected to double the amount of time the sheriff's helicopters will be airborne by making it cheaper — free, in the case of serious, in-progress calls — for every law-enforcement agency in the county to ask for help from the sky.

At the same time, a group of law-enforcement and fire agencies is discussing how to apply King County's new air-support model to the entire Puget Sound area. The expense of outfitting and maintaining an air unit, the war in Iraq and the country's new focus on homeland security are fueling the push for greater efficiency and regional thinking.

"There's no argument: Nothing gives law enforcement a greater edge than a helicopter," said King County sheriff's Sgt. Sydney Jackson, who supervises the air-support unit out of a hangar at the south end of Boeing Field.

The edge may be undisputed, but the price tag has, in the past, made others balk. Under its old billing system, the Sheriff's Office charged $595 an hour for a helicopter and crew (plus overtime if the crew worked late).

As a result, other agencies would radio for a helicopter only in extreme situations, such as homicide investigations and search-and-rescue missions, or they would schedule flights when they needed a helicopter's vantage to get information that couldn't be gathered from the ground.

"Basically, they didn't use us because they considered it too costly," Jackson said.

After recalculating the costs, the Sheriff's Office has come up with a new scheme: All requests during life-threatening incidents, natural disasters, injury accidents and violent crimes — especially when a suspect could be nearby — will be free to any law-enforcement agency in King County, though the requesting agency will still have to pay any overtime.

For search-and-rescue missions, other agencies won't pay a dime, even if a crew works overtime. For less-serious calls or evidence-gathering flights, agencies will be charged $431 an hour, plus overtime, if applicable.

The reduction came about partly because the county's overhead costs were reduced slightly for 2005.

At the same time, the Sheriff's Office is looking to defray some of the costs of its air-support unit by signing contracts with agencies such as the Coast Guard, the state Department of Ecology, the Postal Service and U.S. Protective Services.

The structure of those contracts is still being worked out, but it is expected they will go to the Metropolitan King County Council for approval in the next few months.

From now on, the price charged to other agencies will be recalculated each year to reflect the real costs of running the air-support unit.

More accessible

Even as the Sheriff's Office is making its helicopters more accessible to other agencies in the county, a consortium of sheriff's offices, fire departments and state and federal agencies is discussing sharing helicopters and airplanes.

"It makes sense to be coordinating our efforts," said King County Sheriff Sue Rahr. "I think the taxpayers would be happy to know we're being efficient in sharing our resources so everybody doesn't get their own box of toys."

The Puget Sound Regional Aviation Project is made up of members from sheriff's offices in King, Snohomish, Pierce and Kitsap counties as well as Seattle police and fire departments, Pierce County Fire Districts, the State Patrol, the federally funded Department of Emergency Management in Pierce County, state Department of Ecology, Coast Guard, Navy, and the National Park Service. The FBI and the federal Drug Enforcement Agency are also involved in talks, though neither agency has appointed an official to the committee.

"There's nobody else doing this, joining forces or regionalizing like we're trying to do. There's no other model in the country that we know of," said committee Chairman Thomas Miner, who works for the Department of Emergency Management. "Regionalization is the best way to go, and gives the best bang for taxpayers' dollars."

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has designated the Puget Sound region a "high-risk area" under the Urban Area Security Initiative, said Chief Scott Somers, who oversees the King County sheriff's air-support unit, SWAT team, bomb squad and other specialized units.

The war in Iraq prompted officials here to begin talking about pooling their air resources. The question was first raised in September by the National Park Service, which until recently relied on a National Guard helicopter unit from Fort Lewis for rescue missions to Mount Rainier, said Bill Quistorf, Snohomish County sheriff's deputy and chief pilot.

"It's just the reality of today — there's been lots of military personnel and equipment deployed overseas," Quistorf said. Because local law enforcement can no longer rely on the military for backup, "we really have to become self-reliant within the region," he said.

The federal government recently gave the committee a $150,000 grant to study the best way to pool aircraft. Sheriff's offices in King, Snohomish and Pierce counties are the "three big players" because they already have aviation programs, Miner said.

Though the three agencies "each have a pretty good program," on their own, they "don't have enough assets and don't have enough funds to meet all the mission demands," even within their own jurisdictions, he said.

4 copters in fleet

With four helicopters in its fleet, the King County Sheriff's Office operates the largest and the only full-time law-enforcement helicopter unit in the state.

The Snohomish County Sheriff's Office has two helicopters, though one of them has been out of service for the past two years. The Pierce County Sheriff's Department flies two Cessnas, while the Kitsap County Sheriff's Office has no aircraft.

Fifteen years ago, some in the office considered the King County Sheriff's Air Support Unit a luxury. But attitudes have changed as helicopters have proven their worth as a law-enforcement tool.

Two of King County's helicopters are Bell OH-58 "observation helicopters" that go by the moniker Guardian One. One of the OH-58s is in the shop right now. The unit also flies a "utility helicopter," a UH-1H, better known as a Huey.

The OH-58s and the Huey were acquired through a military-surplus program. Because the federal government donated them to the Sheriff's Office, they can be flown only for official missions under strict rules enforced by the Federal Aviation Administration.

Consequently, the Sheriff's Office purchased a fourth chopper, a Jet Ranger that once made sightseeing trips over the Grand Canyon, for other uses, such as pilot training.

Guardian One — equipped with infrared technology that can detect heat from the ground, a zoom camera with auto focus, a GPS mapping system, a digital video recorder and a powerful "night sun" spotlight — can significantly speed up search times. It also allows deputies to track suspects from a distance, making it safer for officers and for innocent bystanders, Somers said.

"We've had guys cover themselves in mud," Somers chuckled, describing suspects who've tried to mask their body heat from Guardian One's Forward Looking Infra Red device, which can detect a two-degree temperature difference. "It doesn't work."

Metropolitan King County Councilwoman Julia Patterson, who chairs the council's Law, Justice & Human Services Committee, took her first ride in one of the sheriff's choppers two weeks ago. Before climbing aboard the Huey, Patterson said she was skeptical about the benefits of the sheriff's air-support unit, which has annual budget of roughly $630,000. "I kind of wondered why they would need something so expensive," she said.

Patterson was flown over the Port of Seattle's container yard, Puget Sound and Highway 99.

The pilot then asked Patterson for her home address, which was plugged into the helicopter's onboard computer system equipped with GPS. Patterson, 51, lives on a cul-de-sac in SeaTac. "They were able to make a beeline for my house and hover over it," she said. "I could look right down into my back yard and could tell that my teenage daughters weren't home from school yet."

For Patterson, it was an eye-opener. Now that she has seen what the sheriff's helicopters can do, Patterson said "the helicopter should be viewed as a regional service and not just a service to rich cities. I think people in this region would like to see us using our resources more effectively for the betterment of all."

Sara Jean Green: 206-515-5654