The robot’s operators managed to snatch the gun away simply by putting the robot in reverse and backing away.
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According to the Times, the whole thing began with sheriff’s deputies in Lancaster, CA in pursuit of 51-year-old Brock Ray Bunge, suspected of robbing two people and attempting to kill another. A sheriff’s helicopter eventually tracked him down to a dirt berm, where he holed up surrounded by shrubbery and wire fencing.
“While his attention was focused on the vehicles in front of him, the team deployed a robot from behind the suspect’s position”, the Facebook post explains. Bunge was armed, a SWAT team was brought out, and after several hours they sent in the robot to “gain a closer view of Bunge’s hideout”. The Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department said this was one of “very few known” instances where a remotely controlled robot was used to take a weapon.
The gun was at the man’s feet, sheriff’s officials said.
As a helicopter-based crew used a public address system to try unsuccessfully to get the suspect to surrender, a SWAT team faced the man, cops said. “He never knew it happened”. Bunge, who apparently wasn’t even holding the gun, was sufficiently distracted and didn’t notice when the robot reached its claw into the makeshift barricade to snatch the weapon. He looked up and realised his gun was gone and he was exposed.
A UC Davis law professor who has studied American law enforcement’s use of technology told the Associated Press that using a robot to kill could blur the lines of appropriate or ethical use.
After the use of a robot to kill a murder suspect in the Dallas police shooting back in July, the ethics of utilizing these robots against a civilian population has come into question (cough, Skynet, cough).
“We saw no other option but to use our bomb robot”, Police Chief David Brown said at a news conference.
Last year, sheriff’s deputies used a robot during a 22-hour standoff with a woman in Woodland Hills.
The robot was initially expected to get a better look at the gunman, the Los Angeles Times reports, but police chose to use it to grab the weapon after they saw that it was lying next to the man’s feet.
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According to the Los Angeles Times, the most serious charges against Bunge are attempted murder, assault with a deadly weapon and robbery.
