Medford Drone Catches Drive-By Shooter at Walmart

A man suspected of firing multiple rounds into a Medford apartment complex was arrested without incident Tuesday morning. A drone spotted him first.

It’s a clean, quiet example of police drone work done exactly right.

From Swing Lane to the Walmart Parking Lot

The shooting happened in the early hours of March 4 at an apartment complex on Swing Lane. Multiple rounds struck the building. No one was hurt, as KDRV reported.

Officers identified a suspect and a vehicle. Automated License Plate Reader technology picked up the suspect’s car later that morning at the south Walmart Supercenter. That’s when the drone went up.

Thirty-three-year-old Bryce W. Kleinhanz was taken into custody as he approached the store. No confrontation. No foot chase. No officers in harm’s way. Detectives recovered evidence from his vehicle, and the firearm used in the shooting was secured.

Kleinhanz faces charges including Attempted Murder in the Second Degree and Unlawful Use of a Weapon. A Jackson County judge set his bail at $500,000. His next court date is March 12.

The Fleet Behind the Arrest

Medford’s Drone Response Team has been operational since September 2022, built around a small team of FAA-certified Part 107 pilots. The department currently runs five drones of varying sizes and capabilities, including the DJI Matrice 30 series, which is confirmed to be part of MPD’s fleet.

The Matrice 30 is a backpack-portable enterprise aircraft built for exactly this kind of mission. It carries a 48-megapixel zoom camera with up to 200x hybrid zoom, a 12-megapixel wide-angle camera, and a laser rangefinder.

The thermal version, the M30T, adds a 640×512 infrared sensor for low-light and no-light operations. Flight time runs up to 41 minutes, and the aircraft carries an IP55 weather rating, meaning it handles rain, dust, and cold without flinching.

It weighs 8.2 pounds ready to fly. A patrol officer can pull it out of a case, unfold it, and have it airborne in seconds.

Oregon’s drone laws are more restrictive than most states. Medford police can only deploy a drone when there’s probable cause to believe a crime has been committed, is being committed, or is about to be committed. In this case, that threshold was met the moment the ALPR hit. The drone went up legally, found the suspect, and the arrest followed.

DroneXL’s Take

Here’s what I actually think: the combination of ALPR and drone is becoming one of the most effective one-two punches in public safety.

Neither technology is a silver bullet on its own. A license plate reader finds a car. A drone finds the person next to it. Together, they closed a drive-by shooting case in a matter of hours, without anyone getting hurt.

Strip away the press release language and this is what responsible drone deployment looks like. A serious crime, a legal justification, a targeted deployment, a clean arrest. That’s the model. That’s what earns public trust and keeps drone programs alive politically.

Medford’s team has been building this quietly since 2022. Cases like this are why.