Police: GPS Tracking Bullets Being Tested in Iowa and Florida

Police: GPS Tracking Bullets Being Tested in Iowa and Florida
(Screenshot/YouTube)
Zachary Stieber
10/28/2013
Updated:
7/18/2015

Police are testing GPS tracking bullets in Iowa and Florida.

The bullets come out of a weapon mounted in the grill of police cruisers. The suspect’s vehicle is tagged by the “Star Chase” system, after which the tracking bullet shoots out and sticks to the trunk of the suspect’s vehicle.

The bullets are already being used by some officers.

Iowa Trooper Tim Sieleman told CBS that troopers used the device earlier this month in a pursuit in western Iowa, and were able to turn off their lights and stop chasing the suspect.

“We shut it down, tracked him over into Omaha,” said Sieleman.

“If you had told me 16 years ago that I would have had a cannon on the front of my car, I wouldn’t have believed it,” he added.

The system is $5,000 and each round is $500, though. But the potential life-saving capability of the bullets make it attractive to police.

“If it works, great, if it doesn’t, we go back to the drawing board,” said Melanie Bevan, assistant chief at the St. Petersburg Police Department. The company that makes the systems and bullets is letting the department test the technology free of charge.