'It's really exciting': Police department using drone technology to improve emergency response

The Burlington Police Department (BPD) is shaving minutes off of its average response time to 911 calls responding not on the ground – but in the air. The department now has a drone that flies to scenes, providing officers real-time information and video from a birds-eye view.

"It's really exciting to be on the forefront of this technology," said Master Police Officer Matthew Cook, who mans the drone.

The device lives on the roof of BPD Headquarters downtown, and is able to arrive on the scene of emergencies in just three minutes or less.

"[It] definitely increases safety, I think," Cook said. "That way [officers] are not going into a scene blind. They know what's going on."

Assistant Chief Josh Light believes the new technology, which launched about three months ago, makes officers and citizens safer.

"It allows better safety for the community because we kinda know what we're walking into," he said.

He detailed a situation recently in which the drone was able to track a suspect by air, in a way that never would have been possible on the ground.

"One we had very recently was an individual running from officers," Light recalled. "The individual ran into a house, went through the house and jumped out the window on a different side. Normally officers would not even see the individual jump from that window."

Nationwide, some other departments, including in Redmond, Washington and are utilizing drones in the same way, as reported by NBC News.

The programs raise privacy concerns for some civil liberties groups.

"Never before have people been able to send robotic surveillance cameras over people's houses," ACLU Senior Policy Analyst Jay Stanley told NBC.

In Burlington, officers say they are mindful to utilize the technology appropriately.

"Whenever we’re going to an incident, we never focus it on the ground," Asst. Chief Light said. "We always point it to the sky. So the only time we truly focus on any type of incident is when we’re actually on the scene for that particular call for service."

The program has been so successful, Light said, that they will be launching a adding a second drone around Thanksgiving. The drones and their equipment, he said, cost roughly $50,000 each and are paid for with asset forfeiture money.