Fire, police drones caught between saving lives, guarding rights

Benny Evangelista reports:

Battalion Chief Jeff Kleven stood onshore peering through the predawn darkness. He couldn’t see if anyone was inside a car partially submerged in the middle of Alameda Creek’s storm-swollen waters.

Instead of sending a rescue team into the debris-filled current, Kleven deployed the Fremont Fire Department’s newest life-saving tool — a drone equipped with a night-sight camera.

Kleven flew the drone about 40 yards, close enough to “look inside the window and see there was no one in there,” he said.