San Francisco’s city government plans to allow law enforcement to use lethal robots, a decision that has sparked controversy, but police defended themselves Thursday as a “solution of last resort.”
On Tuesday, the San Francisco City Council approved, by a vote of 8 to 3, a resolution that would allow law enforcement to use robots capable of killing in extreme cases, such as in terrorist acts or mass shootings with firearms. , which are tragically common in the US.
The decision, which remains to be finally adopted at the next meeting of the municipal council, scheduled to be held on Tuesday, December 6, sparked a polemic. Opponents fear it will lead to an escalation of police brutality and a future worthy of the Terminator movies.
Only senior police officers will be able to order the use of a robot to kill a suspect. San Francisco police already have robots that can be controlled remotely and use them when receiving reports of bomb placement, handling potentially hazardous materials and “in other incidents where officers need to keep their distance until the location is safe.
The new policy will allow robots to be used to plant “explosives” capable of “neutralizing or disorienting an armed, violent or dangerous suspect who threatens to take life,” police continued. Robots equipped in this way will only be used to save innocent lives.
It’s a “horrible policy,” an idea “totally antithetical to how police should be using robots,” was the reaction on Twitter from Paul Sarry, vice president of the Center for a New American Security. think tank based in Washington.
“The advantage of robots is that they create more distance between law enforcement and a threat, precisely so that there is no need to resort to lethal force,” he added, recalling that police officers have various means at their disposal to neutralize a suspect without to kill him (tazers, tear gas, stun grenades, etc.).
For Mr. Sarri, the decision of the municipality of San Francisco, which there is a risk that other cities will imitate it, is “an example of the militarization of the police in America.”
