Before this degenerates further into one "anti" Hi-Jacking the whole Topic,
I can personally attest that a Police Helicopter CAN be effective in reducing Street robberies !
Several years ago I was involved in an "Operation" targetting exactly this type of crime, in an area where there was LOTS of it going on daily.
On every flight wherever possible, the aircraft would also pay a visit to the Target area and "fly the flag".
We would attend when en route to another Task if it was not an urgent deployment, and also on the way back, as well as between tasks.
We would fly lower than our usual profile, making it noisy and obvious to those on the ground that we were there - and that we were watching.
We would have the side door open with the rear Observer obviously scanning the area with Binoculars, and deploy the Nitesun at night.
"Ground troops" were called to anything at all that looked remotely suspicious.
On Day 1 it was the first day in over 2 years that there were NO reported Street robberies in the area, and over the 2 week period Street Robberies were down by over 40%, which could not be attributed to any other reason.
Was it "cost effective" ?- I don't know - I don't even know what that really means - How do you measure what it would have cost to deal with all the Street robberies that were prevented ????
Was it effective ? You bet it was !
