(Image: King County Sheriff)
An unusual deployment of two King County Sheriff’s helicopters simultaneously over Seattle and low flights over Capitol Hill and the Central District sent hundreds of people turning to CHS to find out what was going on Wednesday morning.
According to a department’s spokesperson, it is very unusual for both helicopters to be in the air simultaneously but it has been a busy day for the office’s unique air unit.
Today was a scheduled session for collecting “contemporary photos” of the choppers at work in the area for use by the sheriff’s department in things like promotions and social media.
The morning also brought a reported bank robbery in Woodinville in which both helicopters assisted.
“There is no harm for community safety, this is all goodwill,” the spokesperson told CHS.
The King County Sheriff’s Air Support Unit is the only “full-time rotary-wing law enforcement aviation unit in Washington State.” The unit operates as Guardian 1 with a Bell 206B3 helicopter, a UH-1H “Huey” helicopter received from a federal surplus program, and a Bell 407 paid for with regional Homeland Security funding. The unit operates six days a week and is in the air around 100 hours per month.
A third helicopter’s flight over the area around the same time Wednesday just before noon was apparently unrelated to the KCSO activity.
With many people still working from home and the area’s extra elevation sometimes providing a better view of the horizon, it doesn’t take much for mystery aircraft to cause a stir over Capitol Hill. The treatment of the area as a flight and training test zone also adds to the situation. In October 2020, CHS reported on training flights involving Black Hawk helicopters from Joint Base Lewis-McChord over Capitol Hill. Residents in the area are still recovering from night after night of Guardian 1 and Washington State Patrol aircraft activity over the area providing surveillance during the 2020 protests. CHS reported here on the surprisingly detailed surveillance imagery captured by the surprisingly loud and annoying WSP plane.
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It was all for SPD propaganda bullshit, got it
This article clearly states it was the King County Sheriff’s propaganda. How did you manage to pull the Seattle Police Department into this?
I guess this is a case of seeing/reading what you want to see/read into anything… similar to Donald Trump’s Big Lie.
Can’t we offer to give Magnolia and Queen Anne their fair share?
It would be nice if Magnolia and Queen Anne got overpoliced. SPD sends dirty cops to Magnolia after they get disciplined since supposedly crime doesn’t happen there.
Over policed? What data do you have to prove this? Most data shows Aseattle is under policed. Crime certainly lends to being under policed.
A lot of wasted resources and human efforts when the problem are the bureaucracy favoring the criminals with weak laughable laws and housing them with the hard earned money from all the good working people 😐😐😐😐😐😐😐😐