Role of technology at center of dispute over police robots
S.F. backs use in extreme cases, igniting debate
SAN FRANCISCO — San Francisco became the unlikely proponent of weaponized police robots last week after supervisors approved limited use of the remote-controlled devices, addressing head-on an evolving technology that has become more widely available even if it is rarely deployed to confront suspects.
The San Francisco Board of Supervisors voted 8-3 last Tuesday to permit police to use robots armed with explosives in extreme situations where lives are at stake and no other alternative is available. The authorization comes as police departments across the US face increasing scrutiny for the use of militarized equipment and force amid a yearslong reckoning on criminal justice.
A new California law requires police to inventory military-grade equipment such as flashbang grenades, assault rifles, and armored vehicles, and seek approval from the public for their use.
So far, police in just two California cities — San Francisco and Oakland — have publicly discussed the use of robots as part of that process. Around the country, police have used robots over the past decade to communicate with barricaded suspects, enter potentially dangerous spaces, and, in rare cases, for deadly force.
Dallas police became the first to kill a suspect with a robot in 2016, when they used one to detonate explosives during a standoff with a sniper who had killed five police officers and injured nine others.
The recent San Francisco vote has renewed a fierce debate over the ethics of using robots to kill a suspect — and the doors such policies might open.
Largely, experts say, the use of such robots remains rare even as technology advances.
Michael White, a professor in the School of Criminology and Criminal Justice at Arizona State University, said even if robotics companies present deadlier options at tradeshows, it doesn't mean police departments will buy them. White said companies made specialized claymores to end barricades and scrambled to equip bodyworn cameras with facial recognition software, but departments didn't want them.
“It's hard to say what will happen in the future, but I think weaponized robots very well could be the next thing that departments don't want because communities are saying they don't want them,” White said.
San Francisco official David Chiu, who authored the California bill to inventory militarized equipment when he was in the state legislature, said communities deserve more transparency from law enforcement and to have a say in the equipment's use.
San Francisco “just happened to be the city that tackled a topic that I certainly didn’t contemplate when the law was going through the process, and that dealt with the subject of socalled killer robots,” said Chiu, now the city attorney.
In 2013, police used a robot to lift a tarp as part of a manhunt for the Boston Marathon bombing suspect, finding him hiding underneath it. Three years later, Dallas police officials sent a bomb disposal robot
packed with explosives into an alcove of El Centro College to end an hourslong standoff with sniper Micah Xavier Johnson, who had opened fire on officers while a demonstration against police brutality was ending.
Police detonated the explosives, killing the suspect. A grand jury declined charges against the officers, and thenDallas Police Chief David O. Brown was widely praised for his handling of the standoff.