Using a Bomb Robot to Kill a Suspect Is an Unprecedented Shift in Policing (vice.com) 983
A police standoff with a suspect in the killing of five police officers in Dallas came to an abrupt end on Friday morning in an unusual way. The police said that negotiations broke down, an exchange of gunfire happened, but then they had no option but to use "bomb robot and place a device on its extension for it to detonate where the suspect was." Motherboard explains the unprecedented shift in policing. From an article: Peter W. Singer, an expert in military technology and robot warfare at the New America Foundation, tweeted that this is the first known incident of a domestic police force using a robot to kill a suspect. Singer tweeted that in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, soldiers have strapped claymore mines to the $8,000 MARCbot using duct tape to turn them into jury-rigged killing devices. Singer says all indications are that the Dallas Police Department did something similar in this case -- it improvised to turn a surveillance robot into a killing machine. Improvised device or not, the concerns here mirror a debate that's been going on for a few years now: Should law enforcement have access to armed drones, or, for that matter, weaponized robots? In 2013 Kentucky Senator Rand Paul staged a 13-hour filibuster that was focused entirely on concerns about the use of armed drones on US soil. Last year, North Dakota became the first state to legalize nonlethal, weaponized drones for its police officers. [...] The ability for police to remotely kill suspects raises due process concerns. If a shooter is holed up and alone, can they be qualified as an imminent threat to life? Are there clear protocols about when a robot can be used to engage a suspect versus when a human needs to engage him or her? When can the use of lethal force be administered remotely?
Major Colvin (Score:5, Insightful)
"I mean you call something a war, and pretty soon everyone is going to be running around acting like warriors." -- Major Colvin
Regan declared The War On Drugs and, unsurprisingly, people started acting like warriors. We now have a militarized police force that, in many areas, is effectively an occupying military. Guess what happens when an occupying military starts killing civilians? Insurgents are created.
I have a feeling this situation is going to spiral out of control pretty quickly.
Re:Major Colvin (Score:5, Insightful)
I have a feeling this situation is going to spiral out of control pretty quickly.
Yes, it probably will. Any RC toy car can be made to carry a bomb underneath your vehicle for very cheap. Bombing begets bombing and anger, not submission and obedience.
Re: (Score:3)
1988 called. It wants its movie back.
RC car bomb scene from The Dead Pool [youtube.com]
War on poverty (Score:3)
As others have said, read your history (Score:3)
Others have mentioned the "war of drugs" term was coined in 1971. This was in response to the violent drug gangs that rose to prominence in the late 1960s and early 1970s. New York and Detroit was especially dangerous.
Look up Frank Lucas aka "Superfly", Griselda Blanco aka Black Widow aka the Godmother, Felix Mitchell aka "The Cat", etc.
Blanco alone is responsible for at least 200 murders.
If you want to talk about Reagan, compare the situation in the cities in 1979 vs 1989. Fact is, the drug gangs were g
Re:Major Colvin (Score:5, Insightful)
And that's why we have PRISM, MSUCLE and all those other programs everyone seems to have forgotten about.
Surveillance is not to find terrorists. It's to stop dissent.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
And a couple generations earlier, we did Prohibition (the War on Alcohol). And pretty soon we had gangsters and cops shooting at each other with tommyguns. Got pretty bad before we managed to amend that particular amendment back out of the Constitution....
Re: Major Colvin (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
You are correct. It was Nixon who coined the term. I apologize for the oversight. I just remember the term becoming very popular in the 80s and so assumed it was Reagan (considering how crazy Nancy was with her anti-drug campaigns).
Re:Major Colvin (Score:5, Insightful)
I just remember the term becoming very popular in the 80s and so assumed it was Reagan (considering how crazy Nancy was with her anti-drug campaigns).
I'm 100% in favor of drug legalization. Yes, even cocaine, heroin & meth. However, I don't consider "Just say no" to have been a bad thing. I don't think drug use is good, but I think the effects of the war on drugs both in terms of cost to taxpayers and the loss of civil liberties is much worse.
Re:Major Colvin (Score:4, Insightful)
It's time we started treating addiction, to anything, as a medical problem. Our first attempt to treat addiction as a crime was the Nineteenth Amendment. When that didn't work, instead of trying a new approach to addiction we have been doubling down on the same failed solution.
Re:Major Colvin (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Major Colvin (Score:5, Insightful)
Addiction is a much larger problem than just drugs. What's your law enforcement solution to food addiction?
Re:Major Colvin (Score:5, Insightful)
That was their choice. I shouldn't be penalized for their bad choices.
You're going to be penalized for their bad choices no matter what. Throw the bums in jail, you say? Fine, but your tax dollars are paying for their jail stays, and when they get out, untreated, to use again, fund the drug syndicates some more, and commit crimes to finance their addiction... well, you'll be paying for all that too, either directly or indirectly.
I can appreciate your lack of sympathy for people who aren't as wise as you are, but by refusing to address the problem you're hurting yourself and your society as much as you're hurting the addicts. How wise is that?
Re:Major Colvin (Score:4, Informative)
Heroin has been well known for centuries to be highly addictive, and extremely debilitating as an addiction. You'd have to be a moron to not know the end result once you read up on it.
Same advice to you.
1) Heroine is not known since centuries
2) it is not highly addictive, nicotine is probably 10 - 100 times more addictive
3) you are mixing up Heroine with Opium (which is not that addictive either)
4) you have no clue how addiction works
Regarding 4) I suggest to read a book about it. I e.g. could take Heroine every day and never would be addicted to it. Go figure.
Re:Major Colvin (Score:4, Insightful)
And we do need to consider that our money is being spent on people who choose their disease, of their own free will. I have sympathy for them, because we all make mistakes, but it is a choice they made, and at some level they have to accept some responsibility for it and that it has reduced their standard of living.
A quintessentially American attitude. Drug addiction is well correlated with mental illness, many people find their own personal spiral in addiction and crime begins with self-medicating as they struggle with their day-to-day lives. Further, one could build hundreds of drug abuse treatment clinics for the money that's thrown around as part of the so-called 'War on Drugs'. To have a safe and functioning society, there are costs that must be paid. One of those is looking after people who have messed up. We don't let people die on the side of the road because they drove too fast, or paid insufficient attention, we put them in a hospital and patch them up. Same thing.
Re:Major Colvin (Score:5, Interesting)
The problem with "just say no" (and the resulting DARE programs) is that it's effectively the same as taking a policy of teaching "abstinence only" in schools. It would have been a lot more useful for me to have a drug education program in school that, yes, told me to not take drugs but, at the same time educated you on the real effects of drugs: "If you drink, don't drive or do anything else that requires precise motor coordination", "If you take LSD, do it with other people and, if possible, have a chaperon", "Hydration is vitally important if you are taking ecstasy", etc, etc.
People are going to take drugs. An "abstinence only" policy towards drugs is going to result in unnecessary deaths.
Re: (Score:3)
Perhaps you've been posting as AC for so long that you don't realize that when you post under your own name and people like what you say... you get mod points? It's up to you to mod, AC.
The mods are chosen algorithmically ... (Score:5, Insightful)
The mods here went full on conservative about a decade ago.
As I understand it:
The mods are chosen algorithmically from the non-anonymous Slashdot users.
The meta-mods, who moderate the moderators' decisions (and affect the algorithm's future awarding of moderator points) are self-chosen.
Are you saying that the algorithm went right-wing? Or that the meta-moderators drove it that way?
Or are you saying that you, personally, are so left-wing that the general membership's moderation looks right-wing to you.
= = = =
A hint, though:
Many left-wingers apply social pressure to each other to conform to certain behavioral templates. This includes agreeing with a number of ideological points, regardless of whether they are consistent with observed reality - or each other.
To someone who has internalized this idea system, any questioning of any of its points is a sign of heresy or non-membership. This calls for immediate criticism - to return the straying sheep to the fold or to attack a non-member of the flock.
Such criticism often takes the form of labelling the heretical speaker as right-wing, i.e. a member of the perceived largest group of enemies.
To a true believer, any deviation honestly appears to be a product of the alleged vast right-wing conspiracy.
Good solution (Score:5, Insightful)
"If a shooter is holed up and alone, can they be qualified as an imminent threat to life?"
In this case, definitely yes. Obviously a blanket judgement cannot be made for all cases. Each situation is entirely different.
Re: Good solution (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3)
Re: Good solution (Score:5, Insightful)
No, didn't you read it? They had No Other Option.
And a new toy to try.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: Good solution (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
"If a shooter is holed up and alone, can they be qualified as an imminent threat to life?"
In this case, definitely yes. Obviously a blanket judgement cannot be made for all cases. Each situation is entirely different.
So what's the difference in each situation?
The race of the suspect?
Obviously race plays a part in imminent threat to a cop's life during a routine traffic stop. Let's also add drone controlled execution as another.
Re:Good solution (Score:5, Informative)
So what's the difference in each situation?
Having him holed up didn't make a difference because he was able to shoot people while holed up.
Re:Good solution (Score:5, Insightful)
This isn't an escalation. What is the difference between this and a sniper taking somebody out? The decision to kill from safety is the same in both cases.
Re:Good solution (Score:5, Insightful)
No, this was a gangland execution. The gang doing the execution was the cops, who are proving they are the real thugs.
Really? (Score:5, Insightful)
5 people are dead. 5 more are in the hospital.
There are major perceived racial issues and conflicts at hand, and you want to focus on the specific equipment at hand?
This was not an autonomous killing machine. It was similar to an RC car with an explosive charge attached to it. All other attempts to kill the gunman had failed, and putting even more people into extreme risk was ill-advised. Putting him down *hard* was the best possible option given the situation.
The gunman was actively shooting other people. At that point, killing them via whatever method is the only sane option. The situation had already been escalated beyond most thresholds.
Turning the conversation into a "but... robots are evil" mess detracts from the very real issues at hand.
Re:Really? (Score:5, Insightful)
Not really. It just shows that most police departments are lazy and rather revenge kill than protect. We've had standoffs last weeks when it involves private militia. The shooter was driven back into a hole and had no way out nor any hostages nor a viable target. He will run out of stamina, food, bullets eventually, but he already killed a cop so he must die that hour.
Re:Really? (Score:5, Insightful)
The gunman was no longer an imminent threat it was murder plain and simple, they were not protecting citizens or even themselves. Step A in all police shootings needs to be would it be ok for a citizen to do this.
This is what paramilitary training does and what you expect in war but we need to not accept from our police.
Re:Really? (Score:5, Insightful)
You already underpay them to an obscene degree. ...
Are you kidding me? Most cops make more than engineers when you factor in their benefits. Retire at age 55 with almost 100% pay, retire at age 58+ with >100% pay, Plus you never get a speeding ticket / DUI / or anything else unless it's caught on camera and goes viral. I'm kinda sorry I didn't become one.
Re:Really? (Score:5, Insightful)
The gunman had military training and was able to survive longer than a normal person would - he knew what he was doing (compared to the training of the cops)
That doesn't refute guruevi's points at all, even if the guy had been combat experienced, which he wasn't. Military training might prolong someone's resistance to siege tactics (such as blocking food/water/comms) but it doesn't eliminate them. Waiting him out was the right option if, in fact, he was no longer able to continue harming people from that position. If he still had a tactical advantage to pursue more targets, putting him down in whatever way they could makes sense. I haven't seen any evidence or statements that is the case though.
I suspect there's a bit of both things going on here. Some amount of concern that the shooter could "escape" from the position and resume shooting and some amount of "he killed one of ours, put him down".
Re:Really? (Score:5, Insightful)
If they could blow up a bomb, they could have blown up a tear gas grenade just as easily, and if he came out shooting, shot him then. Somehow, the police using a bomb just seems wrong.
Re:Really? (Score:5, Insightful)
>5 people are dead. 5 more are in the hospital.
> There are major perceived racial issues and conflicts at hand, and you want to focus on the specific equipment at hand?
Yes, actually. Here is the problem: The situation is emotionally charged right now, and that is not the place from which to make long lasting policy.
> This was not an autonomous killing machine. It was similar to an RC car with an explosive charge attached to it
OK fine. So does that mean that in future the police should be authorized to use RC cars with explosives embedded in them to stop car chases in a manner similar to the awful Clint Eastwood movie "The Dead Pool"? Perhaps mandating the RC cars in question must be equipped with a speaker belting out "Welcome to the Jungle" as well?
Or maybe that's silly. After all, Reaper drones are similar to RC planes and we already know they work well. From a functional standpoint, taking out the perpetrator with that remote bomb bot and bomb was a drone strike. It was a remotely operated vehicle that was deliberately guided to kill a target by using an explosive device.
Do we REALLY want to open the door to using drone strikes in policing? Today it's a sniper. Tomorrow? Raid on a drug house? The day after that, who knows? We already know from experience that extraordinary measures put in place "only for terrorists" have been abused all to hell.
Re:Really? (Score:5, Insightful)
The gunman was not an imminent threat. No attempt to kill him should have been made.
He was trapped. Wait him out.
Re:Really? (Score:4, Insightful)
All other attempts? You mean like waiting for him to get hungry/thirsty? Gassing him out?
The shooter was a major arsewipe and I'm not sad that he is removed from this planet... HOWEVER, what the police did was overstep their power and committed murder.
Police are not supposed to sentence someone to death. They can arrest and the court decides who gets sentenced in what way. By murdering the sniper they overstepped their power.
first drone, not first police bomb (Score:5, Interesting)
http://philly.curbed.com/2013/5/13/10244298/how-philadelphia-became-the-city-that-bombed-itself
"It has been 28 years since police lieutenant Frank Powell leaned from a helicopter and tossed a gym bag packed with C-4 and Tovex explosives onto a residential rowhome in West Philadelphia, leading to the deaths of six adults and five children, along with the complete destruction of 61 homes.
On May 13, 1985 at about 5:30 PM, Philadelphia gained the immortal moniker of "The City That Bombed Itself"; a brutal ending to the city's longstanding struggle with an organization that called itself MOVE."
Re: (Score:3)
There is IR footage of the FBI shooting into the building. They knew very well they would burn that place down. There are several documentaries on it. Keep in mind that all the survivors were acquitted or not tried for any crimes.
Re: first drone, not first police bomb (Score:4, Insightful)
No issue (Score:4, Insightful)
This isn't an issue, as long as there is a human controlling the robot.
It's like saying that using a rifle raises issues because the rifle is isn't close to the target. Using the robot merely slows down the process of moving the killing object from the source to the target.
No, a real issue would be autonomous killing devices. They are coming and will probably be in use before there is general awareness of them. Their use is more likely after that experiment that showed an autonomous robot pilot was better than a skilled human pilot. [newsweek.com]
More than a few questions (Score:5, Interesting)
This is a tremendous shift. They didn't just detonate a bomb nearby the subject, the PLACED a bomb near the subject and detonated it. In my opinion that is not law enforcement, that's assassination.
Opinions aside there are a few questions raised: does the bomb squad keep a stock of bombs around? Are they fragmentary devices? Undirected charges or directional? Did they fabricate this bomb themselves or repurpose an existing explosive? Is this something they train for or were they improvising on scene (potentially risking even more lives)? Who made the risk/benefit determination? Similarly, who approved this action? The police chief? The Mayor? Governor? FBI? Justice department? Was compliance with the posse comitatus act waived? By whom?
Re: (Score:3)
> They didn't just detonate a bomb nearby the subject, the PLACED a bomb near the subject and detonated it. In my opinion that is not law enforcement, that's assassination.
So the definition is how fast the killing projectile approcaches the suspect? If they used a bullet it'd be fine, since it arrives quickly?
Re:More than a few questions (Score:4, Insightful)
I say ethics does work that way - in this narrow case it all worked out for the best. Can't argue with success.
If he wanted to defend himself in a court, he could have surrendered. By remaining a beligerant he forfeits that right.
It would really serve no purpose for the cops to take off their I am a cop hat and put on an I am a military guy hat. In fact there is some overlap between what the cops and what the military do. The cops even generally have militaryesque ranks and chains of command etc.
Bomb VS gas? (Score:4, Interesting)
What I wondered is: did the suspect have a gas mask? If not (I haven't seen anything that said he did), why not launch some tear gas - or even have the robot deploy it - rather than an explosive device?
If they took the guy alive, then perhaps they could have gotten information on accomplices etc.
I have a serious problem with this (Score:5, Interesting)
They effectively used a suicide bomber with an IED to get the job done.
Something that we, as America, have a tendency to denounce whenever it's used against us. .. outstanding.
We're not going to shoot them anymore, we're going to blow them up . . . . . . lol .
What's next ? We going to strap a suicide vest on the K9's, let them run the suspects down ? :|
Maybe fill a police car with explosives and drive it into the house the bad guys are holed up in ?
Here's a thought, maybe someone should take a step back and figure out what the problem is
here. ( Hint: Police keep killing folks. Many of them unarmed, in handcuffs, and mostly black )
Of all the people killed by police under questionable circumstances, how many times were the police
prosecuted for it ?
Exactly.
Once enough folks lose faith in the system, they will cease to rely upon it. The results can be quite
devastating. The police love to tell everyone " This is a war ! ". Though now that folks are no longer playing
by their rules, the game becomes a little more difficult to play doesn't it ?
I suppose the same argument can be made for the Government's behavior as of late. ( I'm looking at you
FBI ) When the rich and powerful get a free pass to do whatever they want, the rest take notice. When
that system pisses enough people off, I would expect the reaction will be very similar.
Re:I have a serious problem with this (Score:5, Insightful)
Hint: Police keep killing folks. Many of them unarmed, in handcuffs, and mostly black
Emphasis mine, and [Citation Needed]
Now, I can't disagree, police killing people is a problem, but why does race ALWAYS have to play a part? According to this [qctimes.com] 100 (ish) people were killed by police last month. 35 white, 27 black, 19 latino. Why do we only care about the black ones?
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Military nightmare (Score:3)
Seems like the USA is going more and more into a civilian war ...
What scares me about this (Score:3)
This isn't about platforms. (Score:3, Insightful)
If the suspect Johnson was shot and killed during exchanges of gunfire twenty minutes into the standoff, no one would care. He was a shooter, he was shooting at cops, he got shot. It would become a part of the tragedy that was last night, but no one would be calling for the head of the Dallas police officer who fired the gun with the bullet that ended his life.
Instead, DPD negotiated with him for hours. They gave him every opportunity to peacefully end the standoff, to lay down arms and leave with his life. I can only speculate on how those hours passed since we don't have details yet. But you don't spend that time before you drive a robot in with an explosive device without giving him several warnings. Johnson knew the only way out was if he laid down arms and came out with his hands up. Johnson chose not to do so. Instead he chose to continue to be a threat to the people of Dallas, to continue taking shots at police officers, and to continue to make threats on the citizens of the city. His life was in his own hands.
It is a tragedy that the end was what it was. This man chose to plan, organize, and execute a planned attack upon law enforcement officers who were guarding citizens demonstrating peacefully. This isn't about war, this is about terror. For the most part no one here in the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex is blaming anyone except for the individuals who carried out this attack. The rhetoric and platforming is primarily coming from y'all, the rest of the world. Here we're just mourning the loss of five officers who died in a peaceful situation for absolutely no reason other than other people were consumed by hatred enough to ambush them in the line of duty.
I don't care what the sides are. I don't care about anyone nitpicking the means. I care about the people around me. Y'all should too. And that's where it should end.
Re:This isn't about platforms. (Score:5, Insightful)
What's new? (Score:4, Interesting)
Only one thing about the whole recent train of events is new:
Smartphones. They've either ripped our heads out of the sand, or overturned a rock, whichever metaphor you prefer. Now what police have long been accused of, and what could reasonably be viewed skeptically, is out in the open.
Should the shooter have done it? No, but that's immaterial.
Was it wrong? Yes, but that's immaterial.
Should he have been engaged with lethal force? Yes, but that's immaterial.
Brutalize a population long enough, and they'll strike out. Forget right and wrong: they WILL, and we can't talk it away or threaten it away. If you don't remove the stimulus, it will just keep happening. And thanks to the smartphone, we now know whether the stimulus is still around or not.
Re: (Score:3)
Don't assume just because everyone can video everything now that it will always be that way.
As time goes on, the smartphone will become more of a user-tracking/user-monitoring device and less of the free-for-all that we have assumed that it is.
Lets see the video (Score:4, Insightful)
Presumably this robot, under police control, had a video camera so the operator could guide it to the target. I'd like to see that video. I'd be Ok with it not showing the gruesome outcome, but the trip to the target, what the target was doing at the time and the eventual detonation. You'd think that a robot carrying a package to an armed man would have been been viewed with some suspicion, even for this unprecedented action. Did it get close enough to see the target? Did it confirm that the target still armed and dangerous at the time? If he aimed his gun at the robot, will that be construed as an aggressive act against a police officer? Who detonated the bomb? If it's a legal, justifiable action, then knowing who did it should be public.
Fuck The Police. (Score:4, Interesting)
Founding Fathers (Score:4, Interesting)
The founders of this nation distrusted standing armies, viewing them as inherent threats to liberty. The Second Amendment was primarily established as a way to secure the ability of the People to defend their Nation. The burning of the Capitol in 1814 might well have heralded the death of the civilian militia: the defenders, though vastly more numerous, were unarmed or poorly armed, and completely failed to impede the British Army. Even before the War of 1812, with the purchase of the original six frigates of the United States Navy, we turned away from the path of the citizen militia, and since then we have gone so far away from the ideals of our founding as to have amassed the largest and most expensive defensive force that the world has ever seen.
There have been a handful of examples where the U.S. Military has been used against its own citizens, but overall the threat to (domestic) liberty has been negligible, although the internment of Japanese Americans during WWII could be an important exception to the rule. The Founders' fears of standing armies were completely mistaken -- or were they?
Until the middle of the 19th Century, guns were expensive, time-consuming to maintain and to fire, and police forces when they existed at all were armed with swords and clubs. During the middle of the 19th Century, however, we see a great shift [guncite.com] in American society and culture. The Civil War spread both arms and conflict, and men like Samuel Colt both popularized and enabled gun ownership on a wide scale. It was (as far as I am aware) during this era that police forces were instituted -- and armed.
Today we have a national crisis. The country resounds with gunfire, and daily we hear of new atrocities, of acts of brutality, and of ever-greater police powers. I believe that we have taken the idea of the citizen soldier to its ultimate bloody conclusion, and that we must disband this hostile Army which has set itself over us. I believe we also have a duty to disband the Gun Culture or perhaps even to disarm ourselves as well, given the failure of the purpose of the 2nd Amendment and the examples of other countries around the globe. We have badly strayed from our founding principles. We have a new Civil War which is escalating daily. We need to drastically revise our society, starting with our Police.
Immeninent Threat? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:option for surrender (Score:5, Informative)
Re:option for surrender (Score:4, Insightful)
They did try. For hours. It's not like they had him cornered, counted to ten, and then decided to blow his ass up.
We don't know the details yet, but I will speculate and state that I personally believe that he had plenty of warning and he had plenty of time to reject said warnings before Dallas PD did what they had to do to end the situation. Everything DPD did last night/this morning was centered around one thing: protecting the lives of the people in Dallas. They did exactly that.
I will further speculate and state that I believe that Johnson knew he wasn't getting out of that garage alive. He had no intention of lying down arms.
Re:option for surrender (Score:4, Insightful)
The point about details is a good one. We won't know if the killing of Micah Johnson was justified until we know the details. He undoubtedly deserved it but that's irrelevant. Police bring people to justice; or if they have to they kill people who pose an imminent threat to others. But in no circumstance should they ever mete out justice.
Killing a suspect has to be on the decision tree somewhere -- e.g. when an armed person has hostages and a police sniper has a clear shot. However, that doesn't mean you get to kill someone because you're pissed, even (or perhaps especially) when you're very justifiably pissed. You should follow the procedure you carefully thought out before you ended up in the heat of the moment.
If you do follow the procedure and you get to the kill-the-suspect box on the flowchart, you should just do it, then go home and try sleep soundly, knowing you did a difficult job as well anyone could be expected to do it. But if you don't follow the procedure you're guilty of manslaughter, albeit possibly with extenuating circumstances.
How you feel about doing it doesn't come into the decision one way or another, because people in highly charged emotional situations are lousy judges of what should be done. Micah Johnson was pissed, possibly justifiably, over the shooting of Philando Castile, so it seemed perfectly reasonable to him to go out and kill five guys who had absolutely nothing to do with it.
That's what we're up against: reptilian brain thinking armed with advanced ape technology. So the rule has to be that the reptilian brain doesn't get to decide what to do. Even when it feels like the right thing; what your primitive brain wants always feels like the right thing.
If the Dallas cops did what their training and policy says they should do, but simply did it creatively, I commend them. If they cut corners, then it's a disciplinary, possibly a criminal matter. In our society everyone is supposed to restrain themselves and act lawfully. Even the cops.
Re: (Score:3)
The police should be required to always give the option of surrender first (something that is currently broken in the policy). If a suspect refuses to surrender and continues hostile behavior then the choice seems pretty clear to me. If a suspect does not surrender, but ceases endangering the lives of others, then the policy should be to wait it out. You'd think someone would have already written a manual on this...
Isn't that pretty much a given once an officer yells "Stop, Police!" at you? Well, the suspect DIDN'T avail himself of the option but kept shooting, summarily executing at least one officer who approached him. He had ample opportunity to end this, to surrender (as you put it) during the hours he was cornered.
Re:option for surrender (Score:5, Insightful)
So all those police that killed people on sight should just expect to get killed? That's basically what happened here, yet the police are now victims?
Re:option for surrender (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:option for surrender (Score:5, Insightful)
I am going to guess you are not an American since you seem to have no idea how our system of justice is supposed to work.
On the balance of probabilities I was going to suggest the opposite. An incredibly large number of Americans are completely oblivious to how their systems of government an policing work.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
And I don't disagree. My comment was a more general one. In this case, the police spent time trying to negotiate, it didn't work. Next step is to eliminate the threat, if cops have to tie a bomb to a robot to do that, so what.
Re:option for surrender (Score:5, Insightful)
The mear fact that some idiot gave the police a bomb in the first place. They have no need ever for that sort of ordinance. Anything past a breaching charge or a flashbang.
Re:option for surrender (Score:5, Insightful)
And this is where you are exactly, completely wrong. The role of CIVILIAN law enforcement is to apprehend the suspect using the least amount of force possible and turn them over to the judicial system. they are not there to assign guilt or innocence. they are not there to render punishment. they apprehend, collect the evidence, and that's it. The role of a MILITARY FORCE is to close with and destroy the enemy. I'm not comfortable with the blurring of that line. If they could strap a bomb on it, they could have put gas grenade or flash bang. The went instead for the most lethal option. If the suspect was in fact in a secured location with no means to escape then the correct choice was to wait it out. He will surrender or suicide eventually. It's been around 100 F in Dallas this week, and a few days in an open air parking garage without water would render him too weak to fight or unconscious.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Note: I'm not defending the use of lethal force in this case, I'm really fucking uncomfortable with that as well. Whether they could keep him bottled up until he gave out is a good question and not one that I can answer.
However, if this is a bomb disposal robot, it is likely that the explosive that the police put onto the robot is one that it is designed to carry and initiate. One way bomb squads dispose of suspected bombs is to detonate them at a time of their choosing using a charge placed by the bomb sq
Re:option for surrender (Score:5, Interesting)
After killing an officer, the waiting for surrender bullshit goes straight out the window.
If you kill, you should expect to be killed, end of story.
Why are cops sacrosanct compared to the populous? what about due process?
Re:so is snipping police officers (Score:4, Insightful)
What inspired this cycle of violence was a problem even more basic than the race angle: the steady drift to more militarized law enforcement. What just happened was another step on this road. In the eyes of the police now, we're all burka-clad Fallujans.
Coming soon - the first purpose-built dog shooting robot.
Re:so is snipping police officers (Score:5, Insightful)
Even military language is standard operating procedure for police.
Police do not patrol neighborhoods, they patrol sectors. Even in small towns it is broken into sectors.
When I think of sectors, I think of militarized zones with fences and lines that need monitoring.
In order for this cycle to end there needs to be respect on both sides. #Blacklivesmatter need to call out people who are being idiots and inciting, #Police need to call out over aggressive idiots on their ranks that are abusive with force instead of condoning it silently as a bystander.
According to reports, this was one man with an AR-15 and a bunch of ammo and look at the damage.
It has to stop on both sides and it has to stop today. It is not cool when someone mows white people down with an assault rifle and it is not cool when police harass Americans for "DWB", driving while black. It is not cool that black people have to teach their children to comply with police or risk getting shot. It is not cool that so many people have nonviolent felonies that they can't get a job. It is a giant cluster mess.
This will take action from society as a whole to fix. I saw an encouraging first step in Detroit recently.
Jobseekers get nonviolent records expunged. [detroitnews.com]
It is not cool that Hilary Clinton gets a get out of jail free card.
It is not cool that General Patraeous gets probation.
It is not cool when teens like Ethan Couch with affluenza walk away with probation or little jail time.
It is not cool that cities like Flint and poisoned with lead just because they are poor.
It is not cool that America rebuilds New Orleans but lets Detroit rot even though it suffered an economic Sunami of Free-Trade Agreements.
It is not cool that some kids can get a decent public education and others can not based on their zip code.
It is not cool that Jails are now a "For Profit" business further preying on people on the margins of society. [motherjones.com]
It is not cool that America incarcerates more people per capita than any other modern country in history.
American is not perfect, but Trump was right when he said the "system was rigged". While we might not be perfect, we believe in a union of people working together for the common good, freedom, and the hope of liberty and pursuing happiness. The hope to live a good life that doesn't have a violent end because you walked down the wrong street or drove in the wrong neighborhood.
I would encourage everyone looking at these events today not to take a sides, but ask,
"What can we do to fix this, before it gets worse?",
"How can we heal the racial divide?"
"How can we love our neighbor?"
The natural tendency is to be tribal, pick your tribe and then prepare to war with the other tribe. It's human, it is how we survived long ago. If we go down that path, more will die. America is awash with guns and ammo and the killing of whites, blacks, gays, muslims, seeks, mexicans NEEDS TO STOP.
Reflect and ask yourself, "how can I be the change I want to see in the world?"
"An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind."
Re:so is snipping police officers (Score:5, Interesting)
Detroit as lots of problems, but poverty isn't actually the worst or most intractable of them.
* Detroit is fairly small in terms of land area compared to cities like Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, and Atlanta... and a HUGE portion of its land area was polluted decades ago in ways that would probably shock people in CHINA.
* If sufficiently-bad environmental pollution is discovered on a tract of land, the current owners are legally on the hook for 100% of the clean-up costs... regardless of whether those costs exceed the value of the land, and regardless of whether the current owners actually had anything at all to DO with the pollution. During the early 20th century, American factories did some really awful things that would never pass muster today... and Detroit was Ground Zero for American Industry. As a result, no sane company will DARE to take ownership of land in Detroit that's likely to be polluted. Not even if the city/county/state/feds gave it to them for FREE. Because that cheap/free plot of land could end up costing them literally unlimited amounts of money for clean-up costs. And the city can't even indemnify purchasers, because the city ITSELF is insolvent & the feds could still turn around and force the new owner to eat 100% of the costs itself.
* Pollution aside, most of Detroit is what's called a "lienfield" (pun on "minefield"). Many of the properties in Detroit have old city liens whose amounts far exceed any conceivable value of the property. In theory, the city could write the old, uncollectable liens off in order to get the property back into productive use again... but in reality, it can't afford to. The value of those old liens might be a polite fiction that exists only on paper... but it's a polite fiction that's propped up what's left of Detroit's credit rating. If Detroit started writing off old liens, its credit rating would plunge.
If America wants to save Detroit (the literal city of Detroit... the larger metro area is doing just fine), the best place to start would be to change the laws for environmental liability so that someone who buys a property there in good faith, then discovers an environmental nightmare below the surface that they literally had nothing whatsoever to do with, could at least wash their hands of the loss and walk away without being on the hook for more than what they paid for the property.
Note that this problem isn't unique to Detroit... cities all across the "Rust Belt" have problems with abandoned factories rendered untouchable by legal liability. Detroit just happens to have a lot MORE of them relative to its total land area. THIS is the #1 reason why when a factory closes, the land it sat on sits abandoned more or less "forever", and new factories only get built on virgin land (usually, far away from those same factories).
This is also part of the reason why some have advocated having the City demolish entire blocks that have been abandoned by their owners... individually, those derelict properties are worth less than nothing... but as a vacant lot that's a square block in size, they might start to become interesting to investors. Especially if those same investors can buy SEVERAL adjacent square blocks & get the City to agree to vacate the streets & infrastructure dividing them so the property can be redeveloped as a single huge structure. And more importantly, with residents gone from the area, the former neighborhood can become the site of a new factory (that would NEVER be allowed to get built next to a residential area, no matter HOW poor it is).
Re:#BlackLivesMatter (Score:4, Informative)
How has the hashtag inspired violence? The police killings of blacks is what is inspiring the violence and murder.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
How has the hashtag inspired violence? The police killings of blacks is what is inspiring the violence and murder.
It has inspired violence by creating a perception that police thinks and acts otherwise. That perception is ubiquitous. While blacks do get killed by police at higher per capita rates, the hashtag created a perception that blacks are the new indians and cops are the new cowboys trying to wipe out the indians. Which is absurd. Policing black neighborhoods saves more black lives than it takes. Most of black homicide victims are killed by criminals rather than by cops. So cops' presence in black neighbor
Re: (Score:3)
That was not the statement. It was racist because it is an over generalization of black people as a whole.
Re:#BlackLivesMatter (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/htus8008.pdf
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
The hashtag against racist violence is to protest the violence, not to inspire it, but the racist-right can't handle the idea of black people having the same rights as the rest of us do, so they'll pretend that a murderous nut is the fault of Black Lives Matter, even though he was shooting at BLM protesters in addition to the police.
Racist right? Like Stalin? Like the national socialists? You keep on talking about the "right" but libertarians are "right" and are all about individualism to an extreme rather than collectivism and centralised control.
Re: (Score:3)
Yeah, sorry, but the classical usage of the term liberal in the US was murdered in the 30's by FDR.
Re:#BlackLivesMatter (Score:5, Insightful)
"Conservatives by definition are authoritarian"
And modern liberals aren't authoritarian? To the point of legislating soft drink cup size? Or the shape of cucumbers in EU?
"Liberals by definition want to encourage INDIVIDUAL liberties"
That would be the definition of LIBERTARIANS and maybe CLASSIC liberals.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Ahh, but you missed the "individual" part. Cup sizes and the like are buisness regulations, not individual regulations. The laws in NY did not prevent you from bringing in your own cup.
Liberals in general want to protect INDIVIDUAL liberties. Due process, 1st amendment, yes even the second amendment.
Re:#BlackLivesMatter (Score:5, Insightful)
Many (but not all) libertarians, especially the American variety, are very much right-wing when it comes to egalitarianism, in that they have no problem with a tiny elite subset of the population controlling all the wealth and thus power of society, so long as it's "not the government" doing that.
The original left-right divide was not just about liberty but about equality as well. The left was for the common people, against the aristocracy; that was their ends. Their means was removing the authority of the aristocracy and granting liberty to the common people. Being nominally in favor of liberty, but perfectly OK with an aristocratic elite ruling over the common people so long as it's done by "libertarian" means, is hardly in line with the history of the left, and much more squarely aligned with the original right.
(In truth, the existence of an aristocratic elite is evidence that the supposedly libertarian principles by which they're operating aren't so libertarian after all, and some kind of authoritarian power still remains for them to exploit. There are libertarians who acknowledge this, libertarian socialists; "socialism" doesn't equal authoritarianism. My personal suspect for that bit of authority remaining to exploit is the enforcement of certain kinds of contracts, especially those of rent and interest, but also things like exclusivity and non-compete arrangements).
Re:#BlackLivesMatter (Score:4, Insightful)
And limit due process whenever it suits them. And get rid of some personal property rights. And take away some religious freedoms. And deny freedom of speech to anyone who organizes as a corporation. And take away freedom to carry groceries in plastic bags. Etc, etc, etc, etc.
They don't believe in individual liberties at all.
Re: (Score:3)
Citations of limiting due process? and property rights? understand that just because someone claims to be liberal does not make them liberal. Dont confuse democrat with liberal, or republican with conservative. Kim Davis for example was not a liberal.
The corporation thing is not really a thing, and would not be an individual liberties issue if it was.
As for the groceries, now you are just going off the rails, I Did no know that was a liberty, even if it is businesses giving you free plastic backs to carry t
Re:#BlackLivesMatter (Score:5, Informative)
Some liberals lie and say they want "reasonable" gun restrictions when their goal is a total ban (except for the elites). It's all about getting the thin edge of the wedge under the door.
Upon seeing her Clinton gun ban enacted in 1994, she said: “If I could have gotten 51 votes in the Senate of the United States for an outright ban, picking up every one of them . . . ‘Mr. and Mrs. America, turn ‘em all in,’ I would have done it.”
Gun Control Misses Mark: Sen. Feinstein Shoots-off Mouth, Hits Foot [forbes.com]
The Second Amendment must go: We ban lawn darts. It’s time to ban guns [salon.com]
Re:#BlackLivesMatter (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:#BlackLivesMatter (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:#BlackLivesMatter (Score:5, Informative)
Re:#BlackLivesMatter (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:#BlackLivesMatter (Score:4, Insightful)
So you call out ad hominems and sweeping generalizations by using ad hominems and sweeping generalizations?
Re: (Score:3)
Not sure if BLM is a movement with leaders or something more like Anonymous. More than likely those BLM supporters who want to kill cops are the minority.
Still I hardly hear a peep from them about cases where the cop does wrong and is prosecuted and ends up convicted of a crime ( or when everyone fully expects that and the cop is sitting in jail ). I hear the noise from BLM about cases where the cop most likely won't suffer any legal sanctions.
Therefore, if we generally expect the legal system to come
Re: (Score:3)
Not sure if BLM is a movement with leaders or something more like Anonymous. More than likely those BLM supporters who want to kill cops are the minority.
Seriously? There are founders, leaders and members of BLM that have been assaulting people [youtube.com] and another [dailymail.co.uk], at least one for running a under-age prostitution ring and under-age sex trafficking, [washingtontimes.com] the one from Toronto has repeatedly said "they wanted to kill white people" [www.cbc.ca] and then at the protest in Toronto they brought out more anti-police, anti-white rhetoric.
Yeah really, these are self-professed members acting in violent, criminal and in general scum like ways. There's no real difference between them and the y
Re:No. This is an unprecedented shit in nothing. (Score:5, Insightful)
Lethal force was no longer called for once he was contained. Police have no business having never mind using explosive as an intentionally deadly weapon, realy nothing past a breaching charge or flashbang.
Re: (Score:3)
I know people will become uncontrollably outraged about this, but it's a standoff weapon. Just like a spear, a bow and arrow, an explosive tossed through a door or window, a gun, or even a vehicle employed as a weapon.
This is half a stones throw from sending a JDAM through the roof, or one of those crazy ISIS bomb trucks. At what point do they stop being peace officers and become domestic warriors? This is a terrifying development; We expect to see things like this in Afghanistan or Syria, not Texas. At what point did we go ahead and just put a big X through the "Alive" part of "Dead or Alive"?
Wow (Score:3)
Re:Can't be (Score:5, Insightful)
The police can't kill people with bombs, they have to use small explosions in shells to speed up a specific projectile, not an accidental one with a bomb, like god intended it to be.
The police shouldn't be in the business of killing people. They're there to apprehend if at all possible, and let the courts decide their fate. The bobbies in London don't even carry firearms, and they get along reasonably well. Why the fuck do American cops need "assault rifles" (heh), tanks, and now remote controlled bombs? This one-sided arms race needs to stop, and we need to take a good hard look at the societal reasons for the violence. We keep killing or incarcerating "bad men", but nobody wants to deal with the reasons how they become this way. Meanwhile, we continue to allow an army grow within our borders that sees all of us as a possible threat. This is not headed in a positive direction.
Re:Who first used a Robot for Murder? (Score:5, Insightful)
There is so much wrong with this entire thing.
Re: (Score:3)
No, that happened last week. https://yro.slashdot.org/story... [slashdot.org]
Re: (Score:3)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]