Finding a hobo asleep in a park in Bakersfield is just another nightly occurrence for George McNinch and Norm Canby.
“I’ve got a hot spot on the infrared camera,” said Canby during a recent Sunday evening patrol above Bakersfield. “It just turned out to be a hobo asleep. We find a lot of hobos asleep in areas like Central Park.”
McNinch and Canby are both deputy sheriffs and helicopter pilots for the Kern County Sheriff’s Department. They go up nightly in one of four helicopters owned by the sheriff’s department and patrol the entire county.
“It is very exciting,” McNinch said. “It is lots of fun and very rewarding. It’s rewarding to know we are keeping cops and neighborhoods safe from the bad guys. We save lives. It is a neat thing to do.”
Canby and McNinch have seen quite a few incidents from their perch in the sky.
“We are sort of numb to it,” McNinch said.
“We’ve seen a lot of stuff,” Canby said. For example, Canby and McNinch witnessed a murder-suicide from the helicopter in which a Bakersfield man shot his girlfriend and then himself.
“No one could’ve done anything,” McNinch said. “We felt so helpless and we had to watch it happen.”
“That’s probably the most disturbing thing I’ve ever seen,” Canby said.
The two are part of a team of five pilots, four of whom fly helicopters while one pilots an airplane.
“We fly mostly at night, but we do have day shifts,” McNinch said. “Most crime happens at night and we are more effective at night. We are geared to work at night with our spotlight and infrared camera.”
According to McNinch, the helicopter flights at night are mostly patrolling the city and randomly lighting up areas of town.
However, the sheriff’s department also works in conjunction with the Bakersfield Police Department with the helicopter patrols.
“More than 50 percent of the time we are the first on scene,” McNinch said. “We can be there in three minutes and set up a perimeter for the patrol cars who will probably have to take 20 minutes.”
The helicopter team is equipped with police radios and are in constant contact with patrol cars. This helps the sheriff’s department and the police department work together at a scene, with the sheriff’s helicopter responding to calls from the police department that might need air support. When they fly to the scene, they set up a perimeter for the police, which means they fly an orbit around the area and shine the light around.
“We don’t go to every call,” McNinch said. “But we will go to a burglary, family fights or homicide. If something is in progress, we’re going to jump on it.”
Becoming a pilot in the sheriff’s department is a long and thorough process. McNinch has been a pilot for 14 of the 18 years he has been with the department. Canby has been at the department for 17 years and has flown for seven years.
The sheriff’s department began recruiting citizen pilots to fly deputies around, but that practice was stopped because of costs and interest of deputies in becoming pilots.
“Why should we use civilian pilots to fly us around when we have interested people?” McNinch said. “We don’t have civilian drivers for the cops in the patrol car and the police officer in the passenger side. So we started training in-house but we do have one civilian instructor pilot.”
To even be considered to enter the pilot program a deputy must first have three years experience in a patrol car, however, McNinch said that due to the intense competition for positions in air support, “it is more like five to 10 years.”
Once deputies have completed their on-the-street training, they will start as a Tactical Flight Operator (TFO) for a year. Once that year is completed, another year of training is required, then three more years before that deputy can be elevated to command pilot status. All pilots also are certified every two years in cardiopulmonary resuscitation.
McNinch and Canby are both command pilots for the department. When they fly they take turns flying the helicopter and working as the TFO. Every flight is manned by two pilots, one who flies and one who is the TFO.
“(The TFO) does all the police work,” McNinch said. “I think we all prefer to fly just because it is more fun. But being the TFO is really rewarding.”
According to McNinch, the helicopter program is funded by taxpayers.
“The sheriff’s department gets over $100 million from taxpayers,” McNinch said. “Our program is less than 1 percent of that budget, which means we get approximately a million bucks.”
That million goes into upgrading the four helicopters, as well as two airplanes. Also, it pays for maintenance of the infrared camera and the spotlight, and any other expenses associated with air support.
During the Sunday shift, Canby and McNinch ended the night with a flight to Shafter to help officers control suspects who were being arrested on suspicion of drug charges. In less than five minutes, McNinch was orbiting the scene and setting a perimeter for the ground officers.
The sheriff’s department regularly takes civilians up on fly alongs. They have scheduled fly alongs months in advance and welcome anyone with an interest in the city to fly with them. The rider sits behind the TFO in the helicopter and wears a headset in order to be in contact with the two pilots, as well as hears police calls.
While the helicopters are primarily used for night patrols of the city, the airplanes are used mainly for administration flights. For example, if the sheriff has to go to Sacramento for a meeting, McNinch said it is cheaper to fly him there in their own plane rather than having him drive and stay in a hotel.
Canby said that one of the planes owned by the department was the result of a drug seizure.
“When we found the plane it was full of cocaine,” he said. “We put in to have the plane and we got it. It is a very nice plane.”
McNinch and Canby both said they love flying and enjoy working for the community by flying the helicopter at night. McNinch said that their first priority is officer and citizen safety.
“One two-man helicopter protects hundreds of officers,” McNinch said.