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http://mashable.com/2016/09/16/gun-robot-standoff
Robots have been used for everything from greeting bank customers to grabbing a slice of pizza — and now they seem to be venturing further into law enforcement.
A six-hour police standoff in a Southern California desert ended on Sept. 8 when a robot was used by police to take away the rifle of an attempted murder suspect.
The special weapons team from the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department made the call after the suspect, 52-year-old Ray B. Bunge, refused to surrender. He has since been charged with attempted murder, criminal threats, assault with a deadly weapon / firearm, robbery and felony vandalism.
During the standoff, Bunge was lying in a "dark open field" in the desert of Antelope Valley, California, when the robot stealthily, quietly snatched the gun sitting next to his feet, according to a Facebook post from the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department.
Police had lost track of Bunge before using a helicopter and special weapons team to find him in a dirt area surrounded by shrubs and fence wiring. That's when they tried distracting Bunge and sending in the robot.
"He looked up and realized his gun was gone and he was exposed."
"While his attention was focused on the vehicles in front of him, the team deployed a robot from behind the suspect's position," the Facebook post explains.
The robot picked up the gun without Bunge noticing before pulling away the fence wiring that had been covering him. At that moment, Bunge finally gave up.
Well, that's a big improvement over sending in a robot with a suicide vest like they did in Dallas.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Thexalon on Monday September 19 2016, @01:24PM
Seriously. Good job, cops. The best possible outcome for a police-suspect encounter is that the suspect is arrested without anybody being hurt. If they do that using trickery, robots, de-escalation technique, surprise, etc, I'm all for it.
It's entirely possible the guy hadn't actually done anything wrong, but that's a question for the courts, not the police. And by taking the gun away and apprehending him without shooting him, the cops give the courts a chance to sort that out, like they didn't in the case of Tyre King.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 1) by Francis on Monday September 19 2016, @03:34PM
He didn't something wrong here. He took a rifle and fled from the police, so any crimes related to that are almost certainly his problem. Whether he did anything leading up to that is really the question.
It's astonishing to me how many people cause huge problems for themselves by trying to avoid just dealing with a problem. Nixon probably wouldn't have been impeached if he hadn't been so dangerously paranoid and willing to do things to cover up the problem. The voters apparently didn't care about the break in at the DNC headquarters. Same goes for Clinton, had she just released the emails she should have left when she left office, it likely would have just blown over in a couple weeks at a point in the race where she would have had months for people to forget about it.
Same goes for a lot of those folks that fight with the cops and wind up shot. The cops rarely shoot people who aren't fighting with them. If you just let the attorneys handle it, it's going to be a mess, but you're unlikely to wind up dead or wounded.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Monday September 19 2016, @03:54PM
Fleeing from the police is not necessarily evidence of an underlying crime. For example, if somebody is from a demographic that is not-infrequently murdered by police, even when not fighting those cops, then fleeing from the police is not a completely irrational response.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 19 2016, @10:35PM
Running is a good way to get yourself shot. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy. People like you run from cops and get shot. You expect to get shot, so you run and thus get shot.
BTW, some of these are murder, but not most. The rest are certainly not all perfectly fine, though some are. There are cases of manslaughter, and there are cases that are just barely legally justified and thus probably a firing offence or at least worthy of demotion or demerit. It's a mix, and calling it all "murder" just shows your bias and tosses your credibility.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 19 2016, @03:55PM
You accidentally a word.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 19 2016, @06:04PM
Nixon wasn't impeached.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 19 2016, @10:42PM
The jury is required to assume "guilty until proven innocent".
To avoid being sued, the media pretend to do likewise, though in obvious cases there really is no reason for concern.
For the rest of us: was it completely obvious?
Some times it's hard to say how a trial would turn out. Some times it's really really obvious. When there are numerous uncorrelated witnesses (not all one family/gang/etc.) who see the crime, and we have video from several angles... it's clear what the result of a trial would be. The best result is that we don't have to pay to run that trial and the punishment, with the guilty party dead already. This isn't to say that cops should get a free pass to decide this as they please, but really we do want the bad ones dead ASAP.