I think people do not really get the whole "continuum of force" thing, the police can and do have the authority to kill people in the US (and in most countries) under the right circumstances. This includes shooting fleeing suspects under the right circumstances. They always have, but I'm not going to get into that in details right now. Nor do I hope I really have to explain that it's not a utopian world, accidents, and collateral damage happen. You should try and avoid them, but it's one thing to sit back and QQ about garbage and how it turned out from a safe distance, and another to go out there and have to do this kind of thing, putting your butt on the line every day.
That said, from what I've read about Dorner, he doesn't seem like the kind of guy to just snap and go rogue, even after being fired. I've noticed there isn't a lot of information about his firing, other than to say that it was due to him "making false statements". I've been of the opinion for a while that we need more information about what happened, and at this point they should be investigating the backround of this a bit more. It occured to me that instead of engaging in urban warfare with the guy, it might be a better idea to look into the situation a bit more, and maybe get the guy to surrender.
That said, I seem to remember this guy has been attacking the family members of people on his list, which doesn't speak highly for him.
While the situation needs more investigation and public scrutiny, as the guy is an armed, murdering, felon with a declared intent to strike again, I have no objection to him being taken out by snipers or a drone given the oppertunity... which is pretty much how I see killing someone with a Drone, the same as doing it with a sniper. For all intents and purposes a drone is just a much more advanced rifle/gun, someone is pulling a "trigger" to kill an unsuspecting target at a range. You have to be careful with tools like this, but as I've never objected to the police using Snipers in the right situations, I'm hardly going to object to them using a Drone. Dorner is exactly the kind of dude that warrents SWAT response and bringing those kinds of tools to bear to begin with.
This also applies to things like thermo, sensors, surveillance, Drones are just new ways of mounting/using those tools. As long as they go through the existing channels to use those tools to begin with, putting them on a Drone is no big deal. If Drones are used in place of SWAT members, or as a way of following up on pre-approved suerveillance/wiretapping operations that have gone through the proper channels, I really don't give a crap. Whether it's a couple of cops in a van listening to your conversation through a wiretap, or doing it by using a Drone hovering outside your window, to me it's the warrent/permission and that process that matters rather than the tool. Ditto for shooting someone with a Drone, I see little fundemental differance between a SWAT Sniper taking down a dangerous guy through a window, and doing it with a Drone, given the same kinds of targets.