A thermal-seeking drone hovered over a junkyard, looking for heatwaves telling where a kidnapping suspect hid.

A tiny listening device picked up the rattle of gunshots — alerting police about the gunfire, even though no one called from the neighborhood.

Officers stood in front of a high-tech simulator, with armed bad guys and innocents popping up — when do I shoot?

Many police agencies deploy high-tech. Because of its youth, the Lancaster Police Department is different — it could lean into that approach on Day One.

Assistant Chief Chris Roberts had chatted with Mayor R. Rex Parris about how the city should approach policing.

“Rex said, ‘Build what you wish you had,’” Roberts said.

Until 2023, Lancaster, which has roughly 165,000 residents, relied on the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department for law enforcement. But city officials wanted their own agency. Although sheriff’s deputies still respond to emergency 911 calls and handle other tasks, Lancaster officers now follow behind to focus on community outreach, help with investigations, and identifying the underlying issues driving crime.

Lancaster PD’s linchpin is the Intelligence Crime Assessment Center — it’s in the same vein as so-called real-time crime centers opened recently in Los Angeles and Orange counties.

The room, at headquarters, is chock-full of computer screens. It’s where data pours in from gunshot-detection listening devices, cameras that capture license-plates, drones, surveillance cameras, and artificial-intelligence systems. That information is analyzed and, when warranted, relayed to responding officers.

“There wasn’t anything like that in north county when we got here,” Chief Rod Armalin said.

Perhaps the department’s most visible tools are its drones: Operated by federally certified drone pilots, they can hit 30 mph and are equipped with 200x zoom and thermal and infrared imaging. They serve as “eyes in the sky,” as the chief puts it, giving officers a live overview of a scene before they arrive.

“The zoom is incredible … and crystal clear,” drone operator Drew Huebner said.

The department is considering what the chief calls “drones-in-a-box” — autonomous units housed in rooftop stations that launch automatically.

These would be linked to ShotSpotter, which uses acoustic sensors to detect gunfire and pinpoint its location. When triggered, a drone could launch in seconds and stream footage directly to dispatchers and officers.

Officers may soon be able to summon drones with a double-tap of their body-worn cameras, too, giving them overhead support during fast-moving situations — before backup even arrives.

Real-time footage can tell supervisors whether a situation needs a full team or just one or two officers.

In regard to residents concerns about their privacy, especially near their homes, Armalin said that drones only record when officers request it, and only when it’s needed for evidence.

ShotSpotter, Assistant Chief Roberts said, has changed how officers respond to gunfire.

When the system debuted in Lancaster in March 2024, it detected around 70 shooting incidents the first month — only three were reported to 911. By December, the total dropped into the 20s — and nearly every case came with a call.

Police figure the criminals realized that officers would roll out, even if no one called — and residents felt more safe reporting the gunfire knowing officers were on the way.

Since launching, the FBI, the U.S. Marshals Service, LAPD’s Fugitive Recovery Unit, and even the U.S. Air Force have trained with Lancaster’s new tech. Several agencies have used Lancaster’s drones and video systems during joint investigations.

These tools have helped solve cases that might’ve otherwise gone cold.

Once, Lancaster officers were tracking shooting suspects. Witnesses described the suspects car that didn’t have license plates. The police went to the the city’s 450 surveillance cameras sprinkled about the city.

Too much footage.

So officers had artificial intelligence pore over it, and they soon had footage of the vehicle in two different locations.

“There was only one gas station between those two camera hits,” Roberts said. “We went there — and that’s how they were caught.”

With that AI, officers can search for “brown pants” or “green hat,” narrowing results without having to watch hours of video.

Even before trouble brews, high-tech helps out.

At headquarters, officers train using RECON LED, a simulator with three large screens. An officer stands in front of them and scenarios play out that require quick decisions on how to handle active shooters, suspicious individuals, domestic-violence calls and confused bystanders. Body-cam footage can be uploaded to recreate events.

“Let’s say we’ve got a real controversial incident that occurred,” Armalin said. “We can recreate it and train officers on that. We can teach officers de-escalation.”