Ot­to Car­ring­ton

Se­nior Re­porter

ot­to.car­ring­ton@cnc3.co.tt

T&T is com­ing off its dead­liest year on record, with 624 mur­ders record­ed in 2024—mark­ing a grim mile­stone in the na­tion’s his­to­ry. As pub­lic fear con­tin­ues over the fre­quen­cy of vi­o­lent crimes, one pri­vate se­cu­ri­ty com­pa­ny is tak­ing proac­tive steps to help turn the tide.

Air Sup­port Tac­ti­cal Se­cu­ri­ty Lim­it­ed is de­ploy­ing its ad­vanced DJI Dock 3 drone plat­form—not for prof­it, but as part of a mis­sion to sup­port front­line ef­forts, be­gin­ning with its loy­al GPS-track­ing cus­tomers and ex­tend­ing to law en­force­ment and com­mu­ni­ties na­tion­wide.

CEO Dirk Barnes said the ini­tia­tive is de­signed to fill crit­i­cal gaps in na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty in­fra­struc­ture and as­sist over­bur­dened law en­force­ment agen­cies.

“Our cus­tomers have been very sup­port­ive, so we’re giv­ing back to them first,” Barnes ex­plained dur­ing a re­cent demon­stra­tion of the sys­tem.

“We work close­ly with the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice when­ev­er we’re called on. If this tech can save even one of­fi­cer’s life, that’s a win.”

Mount­ed on a mo­bile van and ful­ly op­er­a­tional in T&T, the DJI Dock 3 is a state-of-the-art un­manned aer­i­al sys­tem (UAS) ca­pa­ble of launch­ing a drone in un­der ten sec­onds. It can cap­ture ther­mal and high-res­o­lu­tion zoom sur­veil­lance, track stolen ve­hi­cles and sus­pects in re­al time, and re­lay da­ta to a cen­tral com­mand cen­tre.

De­spite the plat­form’s high-tech ca­pa­bil­i­ties, Barnes in­sists the goal is straight­for­ward: pub­lic safe­ty through col­lab­o­ra­tion.

“Our re­la­tion­ship with the TTPS is strong—we see them as broth­ers in arms,” he said.

“This plat­form is about ex­tend­ing their reach and keep­ing of­fi­cers and cit­i­zens safe.”

In phase one, the com­pa­ny is pri­ori­tis­ing GPS cus­tomers, who will re­ceive ear­ly ac­cess to drone-as­sist­ed sur­veil­lance and re­sponse ser­vices. Phase two will ex­pand di­rect sup­port to the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS), with drone de­ploy­ment in high-risk re­cov­er­ies and emer­gency sit­u­a­tions.

Ac­cord­ing to Barnes, the TTPS will ben­e­fit from the tech­nol­o­gy at cost or no cost, de­pend­ing on the sit­u­a­tion, as part of the com­pa­ny’s com­mit­ment to na­tion­al safe­ty. The fi­nal phase of the ini­tia­tive will seek for­mal gov­ern­ment part­ner­ship.

Air Sup­port Tac­ti­cal has al­ready brought in two drones, with a third mount­ed on a ve­hi­cle for mo­bile de­ploy­ment. Three ad­di­tion­al units are ex­pect­ed to ar­rive in the com­ing months.

The DJI Dock 3 plat­form de­liv­ers fea­tures once ex­clu­sive to the mil­i­tary: AI-pow­ered ob­ject track­ing, re­al-time heat de­tec­tion, 112x zoom, and rapid de­ploy­ment from vir­tu­al­ly any lo­ca­tion.

“Ten years ago, this kind of ca­pa­bil­i­ty would have cost $30 to $40 mil­lion. To­day, we’re de­ploy­ing it here in T&T to fight crime and sup­port emer­gency re­sponse,” said Barnes.

How­ev­er, he be­lieves the po­ten­tial goes well be­yond polic­ing.

“We’re just scratch­ing the sur­face of what this tech­nol­o­gy can do,” he added.

“Con­struc­tion site mon­i­tor­ing, traf­fic man­age­ment, even bor­der pro­tec­tion—these are all ar­eas where it can have a ma­jor im­pact.”

De­spite be­ing a mar­ket leader, Barnes said no pri­vate se­cu­ri­ty com­pa­ny con­trols more than two per cent of the es­ti­mat­ed 1.1 mil­lion ve­hi­cles on T&T’s roads.

“There’s so much room for col­lab­o­ra­tion,” he not­ed.

“And most crimes are com­mit­ted us­ing stolen ve­hi­cles, not ones reg­is­tered to the of­fend­er. If we re­duce car theft, we dis­rupt crime lo­gis­tics.”

With ad­di­tion­al drone docks ar­riv­ing and more de­ploy­ment-ready ve­hi­cles be­ing out­fit­ted, Barnes said Air Sup­port Tac­ti­cal isn’t wait­ing on bu­reau­cra­cy to act.

“This is a na­tion­al tool now,” he said.

“We’re not wait­ing for per­mis­sion. We’re al­ready do­ing the work. We just want the rest of the coun­try to join us.”