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In An Apparent First, Police Used A Robot To Kill

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Tosyn_88

Member
A country where citizens become afraid of the police isn't a country worth living. I know it's a controversial statement but the situation that's occurred this week is essentially what this boils down to. Police should de-escalate not escalate, the police isn't the army but I suppose it's too late to begin to teach such concepts.

I made a prediction before yesterday's events, there's an already growing afro American extremist group who are watching the police, in the near future if we don't see a change in the way police deal with minorities, we are in for more conflict. I'd make another prediction, there's a chance that given the lax gun laws around the USA and the growing distrust between afro Americans and police, we will see more extreme groups rise, most would probably be ex military too and they will begin to carry out mediated attacks on police officers when another public incident of a black citizen dying at the hands of police, in the future, we may not be dealing with a sniper but instead a team of snipers who may even plant car bombs around police stations.

The police needs to change strategy to de-escalation now before its too late, because with all these talks of using drones and getting better gear, it is just adding fuel to the fire rather than water. How can the police regain the trust of minorities should be the topic not let's get the best gun or drone or bomb but I know people don't reason, it's probably going to become escalated.
 
Suspect wore body armor as FYI.

He killed 5 officers, wounded nearly a dozen.

He continued to shoot and never stood down despite 4 hours of engagement.

He bluffed that he had the ability to detonate remote explosives. A bluff the Dallas PD didn't take lightly obviously.

I'm fine with it.

If you're gonna escalate to that degree, you better expect an opposing force to do the same.

4 hours? Was he standing on top of an auto-refill anmo crate?

That's gotta be a lot of bullets.

Also, why didn't they chuck a grenade?
 
A country where citizens become afraid of the police isn't a country worth living. I know it's a controversial statement but the situation that's occurred this week is essentially what this boils down to. Police should de-escalate not escalate, the police isn't the army but I suppose it's too late to begin to teach such concepts.

I made a prediction before yesterday's events, there's an already growing afro American extremist group who are watching the police, in the near future if we don't see a change in the way police deal with minorities, we are in for more conflict. I'd make another prediction, there's a chance that given the lax gun laws around the USA and the growing distrust between afro Americans and police, we will see more extreme groups rise, most would probably be ex military too and they will begin to carry out mediated attacks on police officers when another public incident of a black citizen dying at the hands of police, in the future, we may not be dealing with a sniper but instead a team of snipers who may even plant car bombs around police stations.

The police needs to change strategy to de-escalation now before its too late, because with all these talks of using drones and getting better gear, it is just adding fuel to the fire rather than water. How can the police regain the trust of minorities should be the topic not let's get the best gun or drone or bomb but I know people don't reason, it's probably going to become escalated.

Well police is not the root of your problems in the USA. Your strange 2nd amendment and the way people handle and threat it is the problem. Constitutions in other countries get adjusted to the times they live in. And the queen of England is not going to invade the USA anymore. You have no idea how absurd the whole situation looks for people from the rest of the world.
 

2MF

Member
Well police is not the root of your problems in the USA. Your strange 2nd amendment and the way people handle and threat it is the problem. Constitutions in other countries get adjusted to the times they live in. And the queen of England is not going to invade the USA anymore. You have no idea how absurd the whole situation looks for people from the rest of the world.

I would say that the law and police are a much bigger problem than guns. Have you looked at incarceration statistics? The US imprisons people at a huge rate (biggest in the WORLD), and black people are the biggest victims. Some of them deserve to be in prison, but the law is way too harsh on e.g. drugs.

It helps keep black communities in a state of poverty.
 
I would say that the law and police are a much bigger problem than guns. Have you looked at incarceration statistics? The US imprisons people at a huge rate, and black people are the biggest victims. Some of them deserve to be in prison, but the law is way too harsh on e.g. drugs.

A lot of things that gets you jail time in the USA are handeled with fines or community work in Europe.
 
It's all about escalation. Militarisation of police is not okay to pursue. What's to stop terrorists using the same "robot suicide" technology to attack people and locations.

I'm actually surprised no terrorists have attached a bomb to a drone yet. Surely it can't be that hard to attach a plastic explosive to a drone and fly it into a building or crowd. They are using drones in Syria for recon so it seems a logical next step.
 
In WW2 they used dogs for this. They Russians would feed their dogs under tank wrecks and then release the starving dogs loaded with explosives into the incoming German panzers.
 

Deft Beck

Member
There have been many firsts lately. Live streaming a post-shooting on Facebook, and now a police robot used to kill.
 
I would say that the law and police are a much bigger problem than guns. Have you looked at incarceration statistics? The US imprisons people at a huge rate (biggest in the WORLD), and black people are the biggest victims. Some of them deserve to be in prison, but the law is way too harsh on e.g. drugs.

It helps keep black communities in a state of poverty.

The gun problem exacerbates the incarceration problem, though.

A drug dealer in America basically has to own a gun, because he does not have a reasonable expectation of police protection of his property and transactions. The fact that he owns a gun means that he's more likely to be involved in violent crimes whether that was ever his intent or not, and more likely to face steeper charges even if he's brought in purely for possession/trafficking.

I don't argue that the war on drugs is a huge problem, but it's not possible to consider it completely separate from the gun problem. The two have become inextricably linked.
 

Nivash

Member
I'm actually surprised no terrorists have attached a bomb to a drone yet. Surely it can't be that hard to attach a plastic explosive to a drone and fly it into a building or crowd. They are using drones in Syria for recon so it seems a logical next step.

No practical reason to do it. Commercial drones couldn't handle any larger explosives than a hand grenade, which you can just as easily chuck into a crowd yourself instead. For bigger bombs, they just use their ample supply of brainwashed and fanatical suicide bombers as their "drones".

And as a side note, the notion that this will somehow escalate and radicalise terrorists is just ridiculous on the face of it. Terrorists always aim for maximum destruction by any means necessary - they used airlines as ballistic missiles on 9/11 for Christ's sake, that had nothing to do with militarised police. They'd use nuclear bombs if they could just get their hands on them. A single controlled explosion taking out a single gunman isn't going to have any impact on them.

The escalation principle only works on rational criminals that view being armed as a necessary counter to armed police and citizens, it doesn't work on terrorists who's very objective is to kill as many people as possible.
 

KDR_11k

Member
Does the police normally have combat explosives like (lethal) hand grenades and such?

And if they're going that far, why not use toxic gas?
 

Sax1031

Banned
It's all about escalation. Militarisation of police is not okay to pursue. What's to stop terrorists using the same "robot suicide" technology to attack people and locations.

the San Bernardino Terrorist tried to use a RC Car with a bomb already.

During a news briefing last week, Bowdich said Farook brought a bag containing the pipe bomb into the facility when he arrived at 8:37 a.m. An FBI affidavit said the device was made of three galvanized steel pipes and smokeless powder and was attached to a remote-control toy car. The bomb was “armed and ready to detonate.”

http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-fbi-san-bernardino-bombs-20160115-story.html

luckily it seems the SWAT boys are better bomb makers than most these stupid terrorist.
 
they should have just sent the guy a rolling cart with a ps4 and uncharted. The perp would be too distracted by the game and could be apprehended without drama.
 

Rajack

Member
Disturbing, but it was a moment of desperation and they were up against a trained sniper. Probably the only choice they had.
 

mAcOdIn

Member
I think we need to be able to keep things in perspective.

If you're worried about police wrongly killing people you're already past the point of escalation. They already kill innocent, subdued or harmless people on an almost daily basis without robots. You could dearm them down to bow and arrows and they'd still be killing people. Because this problem has little do to with the tools available and everything to do with how the police conduct basic operations, their rules of engagement, how the system protects them after mistakes and a whole host of other reasons. Sure, if they can get away with shooting you in the back they can probably also get away with rolling an expensive robot towards you and blowing you both up but I think we should be focusing on the fact they can get away with killing you in the first place.

And I think this is really a weird psychological place people are at. Is it really any different to order a sniper to take a shot the moment a suspect enters view than it is to drive this stupid robot in? I don't care if SWAT stormed the place in a hail of bullets, everyone including the suspects missed and they got into a hand to hand fight and had to stab him in the throat or if they got into a hand to hand fight and pulled a pin on a grenade he had on his vest(he didn't just saying) and ran from him, or walked in behind one of those portable bomb walls and shot him or rushed in en masse and shot him or a sniper got a view and shot him or they roll the robot in, the end result is the same, it ends with him dead.

Literally the only negative I feel in regards to them using a bomb disposal robot to kill him is something another poster mentioned earlier that I had never thought of and that's that now in the future perhaps another suspect would not trust that that machine is really bringing a cellphone to negotiate with and instead take it as an act on his/her life. That's unfortunate.

As to whether this will lead to killing drones or not, well, no it wont. Because these two operate independently of each other. We already have flying killing drones and whether those ever get adopted by local police for use on Americans has nothing to do with this. I don't know how expensive their bomb disposal robot is but I'm sure most departments aren't chomping at the bit to use these things indiscriminately to kill people. A drone, you just reload the damn thing, it's relatively cost effective, there's nothing cost effective to blowing up these robots. This bomb disposal robot has no strength of an armed UAV or drone aside from the fact it's not a person. It's range sucks, it's speed sucks, it's a one time use if we're talking about using it as a suicide bomb, this isn't giving anyone ideas. If police want armed drones they wanted them before this. If they get armed drones it will not be because of this.
 
Well, I think the only other viable option was to wait him out while keeping the negotiations up.

In which the police would have had to call his bluff on having explosives.
 

BokehKing

Banned
The gun problem exacerbates the incarceration problem, though.

A drug dealer in America basically has to own a gun, because he does not have a reasonable expectation of police protection of his property and transactions. The fact that he owns a gun means that he's more likely to be involved in violent crimes whether that was ever his intent or not, and more likely to face steeper charges even if he's brought in purely for possession/trafficking.

I don't argue that the war on drugs is a huge problem, but it's not possible to consider it completely separate from the gun problem. The two have become inextricably linked.
Bull, I grew up with tons of people who sold drugs, hell I sold drugs at one point, no one owned a gun, granted we were not trying to rob each other or take over turf. It's just something you did around 16-20 years old, everyone and their mother sold some sort of drug.
 

Ether_Snake

安安安安安安安安安安安安安安安
Suspect wore body armor as FYI.

He killed 5 officers, wounded nearly a dozen.

He continued to shoot and never stood down despite 4 hours of engagement.

He bluffed that he had the ability to detonate remote explosives. A bluff the Dallas PD didn't take lightly obviously.

I'm fine with it.

If you're gonna escalate to that degree, you better expect an opposing force to do the same.

Never saw a quote on this, except people constantly repeating that, mostly you really. Any source?

What I read was that he claimed some IEDs had been placed somewhere, and when they told him they didn't any he said they would eventually find them, not that he had any on himself. So that's a pretty big difference.
 

Sax1031

Banned
it was kind of funny this terrorist claims to have a bomb and SWAT was like we will show you a bomb.

i would guess that someone on that SWAT team picked that trick up in Iraq or Afghanistan. although it could have been something thought up on the spot.
 

BokehKing

Banned
Instead of a bomb, they couldn't have rigged it with knockout gas or something? Might've been nice to bring the guy in alive and continued pumping him for information instead of forever having to wonder whether he was acting alone or if there was another shooter who got away.
It's not a video game man
 
Bull, I grew up with tons of people who sold drugs, hell I sold drugs at one point, no one owned a gun, granted we were not trying to rob each other or take over turf. It's just something you did around 16-20 years old, everyone and their mother sold some sort of drug.

Did you sell drugs as a career? Were you feeding your family off a routine profit in the drug trade?

You aren't a "drug dealer" if you sold your friend in college a few grams of your leftover weed. If you're selling drugs in America as your primary source of income for a prolonged period of time and you don't have some form of protection against being robbed, you're some special sort of crazy.
 

BokehKing

Banned
I don't give a shit about this particular individual, in fact he got what he deserved.

I'm concerned about militarization of the police, and using explosives is a clear escalation.
Well then I guess people better start acting more civilized to each other and stop breaking the law? Don't go Rob a bank, don't break into someone's house, stop selling drugs as a profession, don't hold people hostage, dont go shooting up nightclubs. They dont have to use a bomb Everytime, they can use tranq darts or tasers or whatever in the future. In this particular scenario, they had a default bot that comes equipped with an explosive. That's what they used, people act like dropped a nuke on him.
 
I think it should be standard practice with armed stand offs from here on out. Send a robot in with a video/mic to talk them down and surrender. If they don't, blow them up remotely.

Right now someone is designing this new breed of robot police officer, or robocop if you will.
 

Mr Git

Member
The US imprisons people at a huge rate (biggest in the WORLD)

This is true. Also makes 'land of the free' feel somewhat tongue-in-cheek.

I think people are concerned about this precedent due to both escalation and militarisation of the police - but also the situational detachment that this kind of technology provides. There's already huge problems with the police, i.e. widespread institutional racism, and having access to remote technology like this will probably not be pretty.
 

BokehKing

Banned
Did you sell drugs as a career? Were you feeding your family off a routine profit in the drug trade?

You aren't a "drug dealer" if you sold your friend in college a few grams of your leftover weed. If you're selling drugs in America as your primary source of income for a prolonged period of time and you don't have some form of protection against being robbed, you're some special sort of crazy.
Oh thank you for the clarification friend, I'm sure the cops and the judges would agree you.

"Well Mr C********, it looks like you were only selling a pound every few weeks, that doesn't really make you a drug dealer and frankly you're wasting time in my court room, according to Statue AC-IMPERFECTED, unless you own a firearm, I can't classify you as a drug dealer"
 

Ether_Snake

安安安安安安安安安安安安安安安
I think it should be standard practice with armed stand offs from here on out. Send a robot in with a video/mic to talk them down and surrender. If they don't, blow them up remotely.

Right now someone is designing this new breed of robot police officer, or robocop if you will.

First thing an hostage taker will say is that if they send a robot they'll start killing hostages.

If there is no hostage (nor remotely such as because of some remote devices), then what's the point? Just secure the perimeter and have everyone pull out.
 
Well then I guess people better start acting more civilized to each other and stop breaking the law? Don't go Rob a bank, don't break into someone's house, stop selling drugs as a profession, don't hold people hostage, dont go shooting up nightclubs. They dont have to use a bomb Everytime, they can use tranq darts or tasers or whatever in the future. In this particular scenario, they had a default bot that comes equipped with an explosive. That's what they used, people act like dropped a nuke on him.


OHHHHHHH! Don't rob a bank and the police won't kill you! It all seems so simple now!

You act like there isn't mountains of evidence that proves that the police routinely use excessive force on innocent people.
 

Kin5290

Member
Does the police normally have combat explosives like (lethal) hand grenades and such?

And if they're going that far, why not use toxic gas?
No. C4 on the other hand is used to preform explosive breaches.

Using chemical weapons would be a war crime. We had bad experiences with them back in World War I.
 

KingK

Member
I'm not saying any of the cops involved here deserve punishment or anything. It was a tricky situation and there likely weren't any good options. But this should definitely cause concern, and we should have a discussion about the implications for the future. This is essentially a precedent of lethal drone/explosives use without any procedural guidelines or oversight that I know of. Even without my deep distrust of police in this country, I would be uneasy about all of this. I mean, would people here be ok with cops being issued grenades or RPGs?

This is an understandable argument, but I'm kind of like, you can really only be dead once. The cop can't kill you illegally any worse with a drone than he already can with his sidearm or with, like, his beating stick. So I'm not sure the force escalation changes that equation.

I think I generally agree with the argument that it wasn't necessarily the SWAT team's job to define rules of engagement out of the blue for a brand new tactic and we should at least have clear guidelines, written before the fact, if we're going to have things like this done. It's not the Wild West.
Bombs can cause a shit ton more collateral damage than a sick or a gun. C'mon now. If you believe cops are frequently reckless with their use of force than giving them access to lethal use of explosives is definitely more problematic than guns.
 

Kurdel

Banned
Probably because a cop on the force returned from a tour over seas and suggested a strategy they used there. Are we really defending the rights of killers and criminals now?

Well, that is pretty much how the western justice system works.

Sometimes, they even use your tax dollars to pay for their defense.

Shocking, I know.
 

ryan13ts

Member
After killing all those officers and wounding numerous others, They were going to kill this guy no matter what, even if he walked out to surrender probably. Getting blown up might have been the better option than getting shot in a hail of bullets.

I don't really agree with either but the statement that trying to go in could risk other lives is true so I can understand why they did it.
 

TheStruggler

Report me for trolling ND/TLoU2 threads
Do i see why they did it, yes.However I really wish they would have explored an alternate route. If they had intel on him maybe he didnt have a mask and they could have shot tear gas at him every 2-5 minutes eventually involving time and tear gas (an abundance) he would have caved or would have been able to do jack shit. The reason i state that is because he was a valuable source of information and we are left with more questions that answers
 

Chirotera

Banned
That escalation is a big part of what scares me these days, not these random lone wolves (though of course those are still terrifying in their own right!).

Anyone that has studied military history will come across the age old weapon vs. armor cycle of escalation. Men had no armor to protect them against a particular weapon, but then they developed something that would. Thus, new weapons were needed to defeat that armor. That new armor needed new weapons. Those new weapons resulted in new armor. And on and on and on.

In terms of what's going on with our police force, no matter how it started (which is a particularly murky debate), it seems like we now have a police force that is becoming more and more vigilant and aggressive in its tactics. These tactics result in more push back from the people they are being used on. Which causes the police to become more aggressive and reactionary because they don't know if their next traffic stop is going to end up with them being killed. Which results in more horrible incidents, which gives rise to more people like the Dallas shooter... and on and on and on.

The long and short of it, this will probably happen again. And it's probably going to keep getting worse. The use of, what amounts to, an explosive drone, is another point to more aggressive tactics being used (which may or may not be justified, again, that's another debate), and further militarization of the police force to fight a society they feel is against them... well, the cycle continues.

Some people aren't afraid of these escalations, they are the ones that worry me the most. Even if we're happy to see the shooter dead, we should still have that talk about why tactics that were used to fight insurgents in Iraq are now coming home.

It's depressing, no matter how we view it. :-(
 

Kurdel

Banned
Some people aren't afraid of these escalations, they are the ones that worry me the most. Even if we're happy to see the shooter dead, we should still have that talk about why tactics that were used to fight insurgents in Iraq are now coming home.

It's depressing, no matter how we view it. :-(

Yeah, turns out the militarization of the police could get worse, and people still find it acceptable.
 

Sax1031

Banned
we should still have that talk about why tactics that were used to fight insurgents in Iraq are now coming home.

because you fight insurgents using tactics developed to fight insurgents.

it is possible/likely that some of the SWAT guys had fought in Iraq and Afghanistan.
 

Sapientas

Member
Can't be ok with this. This is effectively a death penalty carried out without a trial. With a bullet, even sniper fire, there is a chance of survival, but with a bomb there is zero chance of incapacitation and they did it with full intent of killing him. He was executed by the police.

People saying he gave up his rights when he refused to surrender are wrong. The police is not allowed to execute anyone.

Lots of "what would you do then?" arguments here but of course I don't know, I have literally no experience with this situation. What have the police done in similar cases? Waiting it out seems possible since he was surrounded. What I wouldn't do is blow him up remotely.

I can't really fault the police though considering the entire situation, but everyone taking this lightly and brushing it as a non-issue really surprise me.
 
rc-xd-kills-sniper-o.gif
 

BokehKing

Banned
OHHHHHHH! Don't rob a bank and the police won't kill you! It all seems so simple now!

You act like there isn't mountains of evidence that proves that the police routinely use excessive force on innocent people.
Some people lack commen sense and place themselves around people, places, things that are known magents for law enforcement.


You got friends in a gang? Don't hang out with them
You know that corner is hot, don't hang out there
Your friend driving drunk, don't get in the car with them

These are like basic things our parents teach us at a young age to protect us. Rule number one always being "don't talk back to cops and do as they say"

You know your friends are about to get into a brawl with another school and people are known to carry weapons on them, don't be there because the cops will be called.
You know your friends are about to break into the jr highschool late at night to steal the ice cream from the cafeteria? Errr....wait across the street.
 

MogCakes

Member
The idealism and lack of perspective in this thread is nauseating. Can any of you provide an answer to non-lethal options beyond "anything but a robot"? And the amount of excusing the guy gets for having shot up a city block is incredible. You point a firearm at innocents, you've lost your guarantee to life. Is that so hard to understand?
 
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