On June 6, police officers on duty in Rifle witnessed a rare occurrence in the sky outside the department. It wasn’t a plane or a bird — it was a drone carrying a robotic dog equipped with a 3D printed harness balancing several stacks of donuts.

The robotic dog, coined Lucky, was hoisted into the air by a large drone with a winch and flown to the department. It was then lowered by the drone and walked to the department doors, successfully delivering over a dozen donuts to on-duty officers. 

The fun display was held by the Center of Excellence for Advanced Technology Aerial Firefighting in partnership with the Rifle Police Department, and was organized to celebrate National Donut Day. It was meant to demonstrate the importance of new technologies, such as drones and robotic dogs, for public safety departments.

“The Center of Excellence and the Rifle Police Department just wanted to demonstrate that we are exploring new technologies and trying to stay at the forefront of what’s available,”  Lieutenant Mike Kuper said. 

The importance of drones has continually increased at the Rifle Police Department since it first established its drone department in December 2023. 

While Kuper, the drone department creator, is currently the only one able to operate a drone, four more officers are training for their licenses. Officers must complete an online course covering topics like weather concerns and airspace limitations before taking an exam administered by the Federal Aviation Administration to receive a commercial drone pilot’s license.

Thanks to Silt, the Rifle Police Department now has two drones — Silt police recently donated a commercial drone to Rifle, which was previously operating with only one consumer drone. 

Even a single consumer drone can be a game changer for rural police departments that don’t have access to more expensive aerial tools like helicopters. So far, the Rifle Police Department has used drones to search for missing people, assist with parade routes and document and map scenes of crimes and accidents. 

Drones are especially helpful in complicated traffic accidents, where it can be difficult to take photos that accurately represent the distances between vehicles and debris. 

“It can be very difficult to do from the ground with a conventional camera and it can be a complete game changer when you’re able to get that overhead view,” Kuper said. “We’ve had crime scenes that were expansive in that one photo couldn’t really describe the distance between objects, and we needed to give a good representation of that to really make it make sense.”

They can also be used in situations where sending an officer to take photos would be dangerous, like over bodies of water. 

Kuper hopes that eventually, the Rifle Police Department can utilize small drones during each shift. For now, the department is focused on licensing more officers and giving them time to gain flying experience.

“Ideally, I would like to see a small drone on each shift and a drone pilot on each shift throughout the course of the week so that they could push them up without having to wait or without having to call somebody in to fly it,” Kuper said. “That would be my ideal ‘pie in the sky’ view, but it’s going to be a slow process.”