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.
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Source: The Inquirer
Previous stories:
California Police use a Robot to Take Away a Suspect's Gun
Sniper Attack in Dallas: 5 Cops Dead; 6 More Wounded
(Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 19 2016, @05:07AM
No, no, no, we don't have "suspects" anymore. We have offenders, terrorists, or unlawful enemy combatants, but not suspects. We don't have time to suspect people! Criminals are criminals, the end.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 19 2016, @05:10AM
It's another fine day of nation-building
Let's have a parade
You can dance on the graves and the bones of their children
If you know what to say
And you know it's begun from the beat of the drum
And the screams from the mouths of babes
And we pray as we're watching the charade
Welcome to your wedding day
And it's a damn good day
For the heart and the mind
And the party's happening here
If you'll avert your gaze form the word on the sign
Let me whisper it in your ear
Cause the sign says "run"
Cause the sign says "run"
Cause the sign says "run"
Cause the sign says "run"
And you know it's begun from the crack of the guns
And the screams from the mouths of babes
And we pray as we're watching the charade
Welcome to your wedding day
Welcome to your wedding
"And we want peace"
"Yeah, we want peace"
"And we don't negotiate with terror"
"We don't negotiate with terror"
"We don't negotiate with terror"
"We don't negotiate with terror"
"We don't negotiate with terror"
"We don't negotiate with terror"
"We don't negotiate with terror"
"We only watch them beg."
And you know it's begun from the crack of the guns
And the screams from the mouths of babes
And we pray as we're watching the charade
Welcome to your wedding day
Welcome to your wedding
(Score: 2) by takyon on Monday September 19 2016, @06:15AM
If he wasn't a bad guy, he would have kept his gun and shot the hostile robot.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by BsAtHome on Monday September 19 2016, @06:19AM
The good guys get shot first, questions asked later. The robots will take care of that with a "sorry 'bout that" from the operator(s) and bosses.
(tong-in-cheek)
(Score: 2) by jimshatt on Monday September 19 2016, @07:26AM
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Monday September 19 2016, @05:04PM
I am seriously confused by the idea that an armed suspect in a standoff with police would let a robot surprise him and disarm him considering the current tech in police robots and how noisy they generally are, which makes the thing a bit suspicious while being better than having him get shot from the air as could have happened if the cops had been pissed and wanted to go home, or just prevent me from contrasting with your short sentences; also, could someone clean up all those espresso cups which clutter my desk?
(Score: 2) by Hawkwind on Monday September 19 2016, @09:09PM
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 19 2016, @07:01AM
....sues the hell out of them for this. Bring back Baca!
(Score: 5, Funny) by inertnet on Monday September 19 2016, @11:25AM
The suspect was brought to a psychiatric ward, after insisting that the robot said: "I'll be back".
(Score: 2) by JeanCroix on Monday September 19 2016, @06:54PM
(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.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 19 2016, @04:11PM
Police there used a robot to bomb a black suspect, Micah Xavier Johnson. I have a hunch that this L.A. suspect is white.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 20 2016, @02:32AM
Yeah, poor Johnson. Just going about, doin' his thing, you know, ambushing and murdering cops. Why do they always pick on poor guys like him? Must be a race thing for sure.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 20 2016, @03:38AM
Deliberately missing the point? TFS says Bunge is "an attempted murder suspect." Yet he was captured rather than killed.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 19 2016, @04:38PM
...I was expecting this to be a story about Hillary Clinton.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 19 2016, @07:25PM
They can take my gun when they pry it from my....
um.
where?
oh, wait.
Nevermind.