The city of Dallas has unquestionably been shaken by the recent sniper attack in which five police officers were tragically gunned down. This attack serves up a familiar list of controversial subjects, but these can each be addressed as soon as your old high school friend makes an emotionally charged Facebook status about it. The Black Lives Matter movement, police brutality, gun control, or the mental care of veterans are all issues that have seemed to overlap within this traumatizing event. It seems, though, that there is one conversation that has yet to be had.
The heroics of our men in blue aside, one thing in particular seemed to save the day and steal the show. The Remotect Androx Mark V A-1. The deadly shoot-out turned standoff against a fully armed and trained military veteran required an extra bit of help for the Dallas Police Department. A $150,000, five year-old, C4-equipped robot managed to sneak up on the suspect. Extending its arm, with the pound of C-4 attached, the explosives detonated on the other side of the wall that the sniper was hiding behind, effectively taking him out.
A tactical, heavy machine, the almost 800lb robot used in this instance is capable of maneuvering over difficult ditch–filled terrain, or even a flight of stairs if needed. These particular robots are mainly used for “flashbangs”. A flashbang is a device that creates a loud noise and a bright flash, in order to momentarily confuse a suspect. Sometimes these robots are used to disarm bombs, or carry items through the line of fire. Remotect’s website includes a list of possibilities to mount onto the robot, including but not limited to: drills, saws, cable cutters, shotguns, and gas can dispensers.
In this particularly tragic event, not many people will blame the bold act of Chief David Brown to use the robot. A couple of Dallas radio hosts have called the C-4 detonation “gratifying”. In a sort of “Wiley the coyote” cartoon way I suppose you could call it gratifying. Blowing an armed threat to pieces at a public community college certainly has action movie screenwriting potential. The dark and disturbing reality is that five brave officers were taken away from their respective families that Thursday, and that the use of the robot was simply to prevent the loss of more Dallas police officers.
Whenever I originally read about this impromptu response by Dallas PD, I could not resist forming multiple questions of my own. Why hasn’t this happened before? Why did it take so long to decide on the use of the robot? Will this become a routine response to dangerous shooters? Will this become a routine response to more harmless offenders? How many more robots are there in storage? What if criminals begin using combat robotics, and soon we’re having robot fights in the streets?
In conclusion, I honestly believe the police response with the old C4-equipped Remotect would have been a widely publicized story on it’s own. Tragic events (that have truly touched the lives of many of us) eclipsed an interesting element of crime-fighting that I was previously unaware of. Maybe it’s the militarization of local police. Maybe it’s merely a brilliant response to a particularly desperate situation. Maybe, just maybe, it’s the answer that law enforcement will come to depend on.
