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Dallas Police Used Robot with Bomb to Kill Ambush Suspect: Mayor

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11–20 of 128 posts

Re: Dallas Police Used Robot with Bomb to Kill Ambush Suspect: Mayor

#11

Is that legal? I don't have any sympathy for the guy, but Ive never heard of police doing this. It's certainly a creative way of resolving the conflict.

Legal? vs say shooting him? Why would it be different?

For one, threat level. A cop shooting the suspect has at least the argument of supposed self-defense from imminent harm. They sought him out from a safe place with the sole purpose of his destruction.

Re: Dallas Police Used Robot with Bomb to Kill Ambush Suspect: Mayor

#12

Is that legal? I don't have any sympathy for the guy, but Ive never heard of police doing this. It's certainly a creative way of resolving the conflict.

Well... If you have to chose between sending in your troops/colleagues or a robot, what would you pick?

Tear gas, flashbangs, water cannons, a nice safe armored vehicle... All appropriate (ish) police tools.

IEDs: rather less so.

Re: Dallas Police Used Robot with Bomb to Kill Ambush Suspect: Mayor

#13

Is that legal? I don't have any sympathy for the guy, but Ive never heard of police doing this. It's certainly a creative way of resolving the conflict.

Well... If you have to chose between sending in your troops/colleagues or a robot, what would you pick?

Robot. But they sent the robot in with a bomb instead of, say, literally anything else.

Re: Dallas Police Used Robot with Bomb to Kill Ambush Suspect: Mayor

#14
post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Legal? vs say shooting him? Why would it be different?

I don't think shooting him would have been legal either. You only get to shoot a suspect when there's an imminent threat, and it sounds like there wasn't one. (If there was, they wouldn't have had time to send in the robot.)

That's an excellent point, that in order to bring in a robot they more or less pre-meditated executing him in the field and likely means the suspect had not moved to escalate the situation. You don't prep the bomb and then only set it off once the perp has made his choice to hurt someone else.

Re: Dallas Police Used Robot with Bomb to Kill Ambush Suspect: Mayor

#15

Is that legal? I don't have any sympathy for the guy, but Ive never heard of police doing this. It's certainly a creative way of resolving the conflict.

Well... If you have to chose between sending in your troops/colleagues or a robot, what would you pick?

I mean why send in anyone? He was trapped. Eventually he would have surrendered, or come out where the police could shoot him. Sending in a bomb seems excessive.

Re: Dallas Police Used Robot with Bomb to Kill Ambush Suspect: Mayor

#16
post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Legal? vs say shooting him? Why would it be different?

For one, threat level. A cop shooting the suspect has at least the argument of supposed self-defense from imminent harm. They sought him out from a safe place with the sole purpose of his destruction.

But he was an active shooter with a deadly weapon, not surrendering. If it had been a police sniper instead of a robot, that would have been no different and perhaps more familiar and expected?

Re: Dallas Police Used Robot with Bomb to Kill Ambush Suspect: Mayor

#17

Is that legal? I don't have any sympathy for the guy, but Ive never heard of police doing this. It's certainly a creative way of resolving the conflict.

Well... If you have to chose between sending in your troops/colleagues or a robot, what would you pick?

That's kind of the point though. It's supposed to be difficult for police to kill people prior to their trials.

Re: Dallas Police Used Robot with Bomb to Kill Ambush Suspect: Mayor

#18
While aerial lethal robotic forces have been used for years, this is the first time I've heard of ground-based lethal robots.

It's amazing that it's happened first not by the military in a war situation, but by domestic police forces against it's citizenry.

Re: Dallas Police Used Robot with Bomb to Kill Ambush Suspect: Mayor

#19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well... If you have to chose between sending in your troops/colleagues or a robot, what would you pick?

Tear gas, flashbangs, water cannons, a nice safe armored vehicle... All appropriate (ish) police tools. IEDs: rather less so.

Exactly. If they can have a robot with a bomb, then they can have a robot with tear gas + flashbang.

This is the Dallas police department, they have equipment capable of dealing with this situation -- to include armored cars and ballistic shields.

I hope the legal process is explored in this case.

Re: Dallas Police Used Robot with Bomb to Kill Ambush Suspect: Mayor

#20
post #9

Wow. This feels incredibly wrong. I know it is just an extension of the militarization of American police, but should they be allowed to issue a death sentence like that? I argue no. Expend the time and resources to non-lethally incarcerate him.

>This feels incredibly wrong.

I concur. There seems to be a lack of thinking and willingness to wait things out or backoff. Rather than backoff or retreat the police seem too trigger happy. The Baton Rouge shooting the police didn't want to wait for the suspect so they got aggressive and tried tackling him leading to a scuffle. The MN shooting, if the officer felt threatened he could have slowly backed up to his vehicle until backup arrives and only shoot if/when the suspect actually makes a truly life threatening move. (I know, easier said than done. But we need to de-escalate and disarm regular beat cops [slim chance of that happening now I suppose].)

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