Well, judging by the NPR article, which had actual interviews
   rather than the speculation of the clickbait shock article with
   the laser beam police UFO... their primary reason is things like
   escaped prisoners and chasing them through cornfields.

   In short, a North Dakota solution for a North Dakota problem as
   the interviewer pointed out.

   They have huge territories to cover in areas that drones would
   be better suited, the human population is extremely sparse in
   these search areas, and the teams of men required to do a
   standard formation search pattern is, well, a lot of people in
   tall corn fields to find one single person.

   So, it's logical for them.

   In a city of course it wouldn't be logical, or even a suburb.
   Too much chance for disaster. the good news about this, is North
   Dakota stepped forward and made a stance. They feel they need
   them for their search/capture problem for prison escapes.
   Prisons are surrounded by cornfields and such; essentially, they
   put themselves in this mess and need a cheaper way to get out of
   it, and drones seem to be "it".

   Ok, I'm ok with that.

   But, like you said: "next step".

   Now that a precedent has been set on a State level... well, that
   state 1 out of 50 that has a police force that's allowed to use
   drones.

   How will the other states respond?

   I'd look at the marijuana legalization over the past few decades
   as an analogy.

   The first state did things a certain way. Some was good about
   it, some not so good.

   Other states watched closely, made their OWN legislation, and as
   each state approved it, they learned from the mistakes of the
   other states.

   I expect a similar set of progress here.