It's a bird. It's a plane. It's an unmanned sheriff's spy drone

The Los Angeles sheriff believes it's the first use of the planes for law enforcement.
LOS ANGELES (AP) -- This could be the shape of things to come in crimefighting.
In the months ahead, the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department will test an unmanned, remote-controlled surveillance plane.
If deputies want a birds'-eye view of a standoff, they might scramble the unmanned drone instead of a helicopter to get a closer, quieter look. Within minutes, real-time color video would be streamed to a portable computer system manned by an officer 250 feet below.
Officials with the nation's largest sheriff's department said it is believed to be the first field test of drones by local police in a major U.S. urban area.
Much lighter and smaller than the military drones flown over Iraq and Afghanistan, and only a fraction of the cost, the aircraft is not much bigger than a model airplane and will initially be limited to scanning rooftops for break-ins and finding lost children or hikers.
Depending on the outcome of the tests, the department could eventually put as many as 20 of the aircraft into service, expanding their use to searching for suspects on the run and monitoring hostage situations, among other things. The drones would be used in addition to the sheriff's fleet of 18 helicopters.
Copyright 2006 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.