Governor (Jerry Brown) vetoes bill that would have limited police use of drones

[Feral Child]

50. You can't win if you don't play.

We'll have to disagree on the drones. Facetiousness aside, I don't see any realistic use to justify the cost.

In addition to their strike-capabilities, the military uses them for surveillance and reconnaissance. In an area where anti-aircraft fire can be particularly dangerous, removal of a human-target pilot and replacing that component with a remote-operator in a safe location makes sense. That's fine in open country with light to non-existent traffic; pretty useless in an urban environment with heavy pedestrian and vehicular traffic. The 2nd hand, DEWAT drones the cops get from the military don't have hover-capability. Like a shark, they have to keep moving.

Evidence and intelligence gathering by the police are adequately serviced by proven tactics: stakeout and observation posts and the occasional following of a suspect by helicopter. Drones aren't especially adept at following cars in heavy traffic. The best they can achieve is photography of static locations, already easily accomplished by helicopter.

Remote operation is tricky and expensive. Since police helicopters aren't often attacked by SAMs, removing the eyes of a pilot is a useless complication. Manned helicopters can be used for lots of other purposes; search and rescue and rapid medevac avoiding traffic-snarls are good examples. Drones would be a single-purpose expense not justifiable by the limited operational use they'd get.

These are just another military toy for local PDs that already have budgeting problems.