The San Francisco Police Department in the United States has asked the city’s board of supervisors for permission to deploy robots. A peculiarity for these, they would be used to shoot suspects considered a threat to the public and the officers. The law will be voted on this Tuesday, November 29.
What if the police were accompanied by robots? A not-so-distant future, according to the article by Engadget, a media dedicated to technological news. According to him, the San Francisco Police Department has asked the city’s board of supervisors for permission to deploy robots. These would be used to kill suspects identified as a threat. The use of these robots would only be done if the “risk of death to the public or officers” outweighs any other option.
A vote at the Supervisory Board on November 29
This bill is controversial. Both inside and outside the board, opposition is strong. For supervisor Aaron Peskin, “robots should not be used as a use of force against anyone” in policy parlance. After this statement, the San Francisco Police Department removed this wording, allowing the rules committee to unanimously approve this draft. It will be presented to the Supervisory Board for a vote on November 29.
The chairman of the committee, Aaron Peskin, even went back on his remarks by stating “there could be scenarios where the deployment of lethal force remains the only option”.
A first case in Dallas
According Engadget, the San Francisco police currently have a dozen working remote-controlled robots. Typically, these are used for inspections and clearances. It was in 2016 in Dallas that the police department used a robot to exert deadly force for the first time. He then deployed a demining robot armed with a bomb to kill a suspect. The man had killed five police officers and injured several other people before being shot by the explosive charge that the robot had deposited.
According to David Brown, the city’s police chief, the department “had no choice but to use the trapped robot, and place a device in its extension” in order to kill the suspect. A much-discussed subject in the United States.