the LAPD is pioneering the use of helicopters to stop crimes before they start.

Tapping into the data-driven policing trend, the department uses heat maps, technology and years of statistics to identify crime "hot spots." Pilots then use their downtime to fly over them, on the theory that would-be criminals tend to rethink their nefarious plans when there's an airship hovering overhead.

What some see as an innovative tool for keeping the peace, however, others call a deafening intrusion.

 

As iconic as palm trees, LAPD helicopters — "ghetto birds" as Ice Cube calls them — have played a "good cop-bad cop" role in popular culture for decades. The benign "whirlybirds" that flew out of a San Fernando Valley airport on crime-solving missions in the 1950s TV series of that name became ominous "helicopter gunships" in dystopian author Mike Davis' "City of Quartz," and omnipresent LAPD "spinners" in Ridley Scott's "Blade Runner."

The Los Angeles Police Department began exploring the deterrent approach a few years ago with a new model called predictive policing that deployed officers and patrol cars to areas where data suggested crime was more likely to occur.

Criminologists say the use of helicopters is a natural, if highly unusual, expansion of that policing strategy.