Legal
Experts Raise Alarm over Shocking Use of 'Killer Robot' in Dallas
'
The fact that the police have a weapon like
this...is an example of the militarization of the police and law
enforcement—and goes in the wrong direction'
Dallas police officers respond to the ambush
attack on July 7, 2016. (Photo: AP)
As news emerges that police officers in
Dallas, Texas used an armed robot to kill the suspected shooter in Thursday night's
ambush, experts are warning that it represents a sea change in police
militarization that only heightens risks to human and constitutional rights.
Dallas Police Chief David Brown said Friday
morning during a press conference that police "saw no other option but to
use our bomb robot and place a device on its extension for it to detonate"
where the suspect had taken refuge in a parking garage as police tried to
negotiate with him, adding that he was "deceased as a result of detonating
the bomb."
The suspect, identified as Micah Xavier
Johnson, was killed around 2:30am Friday morning after an hours-long standoff
with police. The shootings killed five officers and left more than a dozen
people injured. Johnson reportedly confirmed that he had acted alone and was
not affiliated with any group.
Many noted that
this appears to be the first time that domestic police have used a lethal robot
to kill a suspect.
According to Marjorie Cohn, Professor Emerita
at the Thomas Jefferson School of Law and editor and contributor toDrones
and Targeted Killings: Legal, Moral, and Geopolitical Issues, it's a sign
that U.S. law enforcement is continuing to go in "the wrong
direction."
"Due process is not just enshrined in our constitution, it's also enshrined in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights."
—Marjorie Cohn,
Thomas Jefferson School of Law
"The fact that the police have a weapon
like this, and other weapons like drones and tanks, is an example of the
militarization of the police and law enforcement—and goes in the wrong
direction," Cohn told Common Dreams. "We should see the
police using humane techniques, interacting on a more humane level with the
community, and although certainly the police officers did not deserve to die,
this is an indication of something much deeper in the society, and that's the
racism that permeates the police departments across the country. It's a real
tragedy."
Seth Stoughton, a former police officer and
assistant professor of law at the University of South Carolina, told The
Atlantic on Friday, "This is sort of a new horizon for police
technology. Robots have been around for a while, but using them to deliver
lethal force raises some new issues."
As security expert and University of
Pennsylvania professor Matt Blaze noted on
Twitter on Friday, numerous safety concerns about the robot's protocols—for
example, how easily it might be hacked—remain unaddressed.
"How was the control link to the Dallas
bomb robot secured? Stakes go *way* up when something like this is repurposed
as a weapon," he wrote.
As Popular Science tech
editor David Gershgorn also explained:
Repurposing
a robot that was created to prevent death by explosion clearly contrasts with
the way these machines are normally used. Bomb disposal robots are routinely
used to minimize the potential of harm to officers and civilians when disarming
or clearing potential explosives from an area. They are often equipped
with their own
explosive charges and other tools, not to kill, but detonate other
potential bombs in the area.
Questions also arose regarding the necessity
of the suspect's killing after he reportedly told police during negotiations
that there were "bombs all over" downtown Dallas.
As Cohn noted, officers could have determined
where those devices were located, "if in fact there are bombs," had
they left the suspect alive. Moreover, she said, killing him violated his
constitutional right to due process.
"Police cannot use deadly force unless
there's an imminent threat of death or great bodily injury to them or other
people. If the suspect was holed up in a parking garage and there was nobody in
immediate danger from him, the police could have waited him out. They should
have arrested him and brought him to trial," Cohn said. "Due process
is not just enshrined in our constitution, it's also enshrined in the
International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which the U.S. has
ratified, making it part of U.S. law."
Likewise, Stoughton told The Atlantic,
"Policing has a different mission [than the military]: protecting the
populace. That core mission, as difficult as it is to explains sometimes,
includes protecting some people who do some bad things. It includes not using
lethal force when it's possible to not."
Many noted the connection between potentially
the first use of an armed robot in domestic policing and the deployment of such
tools in active war zones. Defense technology expert Peter W. Singer wrote on
Twitter, "this is 1st use of robot in this way in policing. Marcbot has
been ad hoc used this way by troops in Iraq."
"The same way that the Obama administration uses unmanned drones in other countries, we see a similar situation here."
—Marjorie Cohn,
Thomas Jefferson School of Law
Cohn said, "The same way
that the Obama administration uses unmanned drones in other countries to kill
people instead of arresting them and bringing them to trial, we see a similar
situation here....As the technology develops, we're going to see the increasing
use of military weapons in the hands of the police, which is going to inflame
and exacerbate a very volatile situation."
"We can see that many of the weapons
that are being used by the military are in the hands of the police," she
added. "This is a very volatile situation, very dangerous situation, and
is only going to make the tensions worse and kill people and violate
constitutional rights."
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"The master class
has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles.
The master class has had all to gain and nothing to lose, while the subject
class has had nothing to gain and everything to lose--especially their lives."
Eugene Victor Debs
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