EPS celebrates a decade of patrolling Edmonton from the sky

Edmonton’s police helicopter program is celebrating 10 years of serving our city from the skies.

The Air One anniversary was commemorated on Saturday at a ceremony at Vallevand Kennels on Saturday afternoon, with people coming out to see the chopper up close and learn about its history.

Cst. Trevor Bohachyk, one of six EPS officers who make up the EPS Air Unit, says the police helicopter has been a huge asset to the force. Over the past ten years, it has been responsible for the execution of about 250 criminal arrests per year.

But getting the helicopter wasn’t easy. It was 630 Ched’s Bob Layton who brought the issue to the public spotlight, rallying the community to raise the 2 million dollars that was initially needed to start the program.

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“A lot of people, we had to convince them, why did we need a helicopter,” said Chris Hayden, a former EPS officer who was one of the original four Air One crew members. “I think officer safety, public safety – that drove the point home.” 

A decade later, there are now two helicopters part of the program, and the technology has vastly improved. For example, the calls they go to are now recorded, and the footage is handed over to the courts if needed. The images from the infrared camera, which is used to see in the dark, are also much clearer.

Another important tool Air One uses is the big spotlight that’s known as the “night sun.”

“We use that for illuminating collision scenes, vehicle stops, arrests, we use it kind of like a laser pointer to either redirect crews into hard to find areas,” said Bohachyk. “So it’s a multi-faceted tool.”

Perhaps the biggest benefit of Air One, though, is its ability to get to different places in the city in a very short period of time, allowing police to manage their resources more effectively.

“A lot of time we’re redirecting 2 or 3 or 4 cars and saying ‘we don’t need these resources here,’ either we can look after it ourselves just with our presence or we can just give the updates and monitor and let the guys on the ground head off to other stuff and help other folks,” said Bohachyk.

About 1,700 ground crews are redirected by Air One each year. And EPS officials hope for many more years on the helicopter’s horizon. 

With files from Vinesh Pratap.