The Liberal Gun Club Forum

Paco wrote:

Stiff wrote:
It's quite simple actually. Unless SWAT members have level III armor that can stop rifle bullets, they're vulnerable. The armor worn daily by regular cops doesn't stop .223. Even with armor if you're hit in an uncovered area (like neck and face) you still die.

If they know the guy is only armed with a pistol, they may act differently.

Right. And i was complimenting you for pointing out that significant fact. Simple as that.

Ok - now for a question. Why did the police response in Ferguson include armored vehicles, roof-mounted guns, full battle-rattle, and long guns galore when nobody was shooting at cops, while the response in Dallas was a bunch of officers with Glock 17s and one exploding robot?

AndyH wrote: Ok - now for a question. Why did the police response in Ferguson include armored vehicles, roof-mounted guns, full battle-rattle, and long guns galore when nobody was shooting at cops, while the response in Dallas was a bunch of officers with Glock 17s and one exploding robot?

Maybe the guys in Ferguson still needed that stuff... They should have borrowed the battering ram from the LAPD:



But really, the use of a bomb robot, in this case not to defuse a bomb but actually drive in and deliver/detonate one with the intention to kill, sets a very, very bad precedent for civil society. Part of the reason we have the justice system is NOT to allow police to be judge, jury, & executioner. If in the process of trying to apprehend the perpetrator happens to get shot and die, that is chalked up to resisting arrest. If the perp is fatally injured by a flash-grenade delivered by robot or officers in the process of apprehending him, that may also be considered acceptable. But to go in with C-4 and intentionally blow up the perpetrator just because the Chief decided it was too risky for his men to do their job and try to apprehend the perpetrator, even make an attempted show of it, that is profoundly bad decision.

This is not a question of technology here. It is a question of the reasonable limits of police powers.

This would have played out differently if the robot was sent in with a stun-gun or stun-grenade with a camera demanding the perpetrator lay down his weapons. The camera can record the reaction of the perpetrator for court. But in civil society the police cannot be allowed to wantonly kill the perpetrator even if the perp is a murderer. There must be a difference between a murderer and the police. And that line was crossed here.

Outside due process of law, any intentional act of extra-judicial killing is murder.

I hope the city demands the resignation of the Chief over this decision. I hope the US Attorney files charges and bring this matter into the courts to censure this decision at the very least. If not, we will see more of this execution style decisions happening in other police forces in the future. The National Law Enforcement Union president has already expressed such considerations:

Robots have been part of police tactical equipment for years — used to surveil crime scenes, aide in hostage negotiations or defuse bombs — but this was a "unique use of equipment," according to Chuck Canterbury, national president of the Fraternal Order of Police, the largest U.S. law enforcement union.

"I think it's the first time that's been utilized," Canterbury told NPR. "I know that SWAT teams around the country have been training for that scenario, especially with terroristic-type threats, where you know that the offenders do not plan to live through them."

Who determines that offenders do not plan to live through any ordeal? Yes, the police on the scene will.

Good job DPD. Perp dead. How is of little consequence - explosives, bullet, drone, napalm, flame thrower, RPG - without endangering more police - saved the taxpayers of Texas some money.

The Dallas sniper was killed with a bomb robot, an apparent first:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the ... g-suspect/

This worries me. Could they not have used tear gas or something non-lethal?

AndyH wrote:

Paco wrote:

Stiff wrote:
It's quite simple actually. Unless SWAT members have level III armor that can stop rifle bullets, they're vulnerable. The armor worn daily by regular cops doesn't stop .223. Even with armor if you're hit in an uncovered area (like neck and face) you still die.

If they know the guy is only armed with a pistol, they may act differently.

Right. And i was complimenting you for pointing out that significant fact. Simple as that.

Ok - now for a question. Why did the police response in Ferguson include armored vehicles, roof-mounted guns, full battle-rattle, and long guns galore when nobody was shooting at cops, while the response in Dallas was a bunch of officers with Glock 17s and one exploding robot?

Two totally different circumstance happenings - comparing apples and eggs. One was a delayed action (Ferguson) with time to prep for riots; Dallas was in the moment - all the military equipment showed up shortly there after - there were AR15's galore in the vids I've seen - don't recall an MRAP, but don't doubt there was one or two IF Dallas took some.

Not the first time methods like this has been used. Not with a robot, but with a bomb.. 1985

http://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/ ... ve-bombing

Jaywalker wrote:The Dallas sniper was killed with a bomb robot, an apparent first:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the ... g-suspect/

This worries me. Could they not have used tear gas or something non-lethal?

They probably considered it. Tear gas is not a magical solution to much of anything.
Criminals can use bombs. terrorists can use bombs. Contractors can use explosives. Gang bangers can use bombs. They were faced with a forted up heavily armed and armored subject who left a trail of dead and injured behind him. I have no problem with them using a remote control device to deliver a bomb. Easy to criticize, when you are not on the spot and are being shot at.

Yes, I was thinking about Wilson Good and Project Move when I heard about the robo-bomb.

dougb wrote:

Jaywalker wrote:The Dallas sniper was killed with a bomb robot, an apparent first:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the ... g-suspect/

This worries me. Could they not have used tear gas or something non-lethal?

They probably considered it. Tear gas is not a magical solution to much of anything.
Criminals can use bombs. terrorists can use bombs. Contractors can use explosives. Gang bangers can use bombs. They were faced with a forted up heavily armed and armored subject who left a trail of dead and injured behind him. I have no problem with them using a remote control device to deliver a bomb. Easy to criticize, when you are not on the spot and are being shot at.

I think the problem is that where do the police draw the line on when to use the bomb? It always starts like this, but eventually they will justify it for the smaller events too, and then its just common practice. Thats the scary part. And the more the police use bombs, the more the bad guys will too. Its a fine line for so many reasons, and the wrong step on either side of the line can create real disaster. I don't have the answer though. You cant let the bad guys do what they want, but you cant let the police use bombs without extreme prejudice. Just as less deadly but still a good example of how police can abuse their powers, look at what happened with confiscation laws in several states. A tool that was meant to stop drug dealers and criminals, was used to enrich police officers and politicians personal bank accounts. I know its apples and oranges but my point is, even good guys can do bad things when given the opportunity. And who knows, one day it might just be easier to bomb than to arrest, trail and convict. And not just in sniper situation.

Jaywalker wrote:Could they not have used tear gas or something non-lethal?

Gas in real life isn't a predictable as it is in the movies.

Moscow hostage crisis, October 2002

I'm none too comfortable with using a bomb-bot, but I doubt I could come up with a better idea in a timely manner. This event will, however, drive the development of other solutions.

SwampGrouch wrote:

Jaywalker wrote: This event will, however, drive the development of other solutions.

And that statement right their, is a good thing..

We could think of the ROV with a bomb as a drone on the ground.

After merge duplicate post

Mergemaster deluxe applied.

SwampGrouch wrote:This event will, however, drive the development of other solutions.

It is more likely to result in police lobbing an explosive instead of a flash bang onto a baby next time. Ask Bounkham Phonesavanh about it, if he can even talk. You can already read about how it would likely turn out for the police's victim or victims.

Toddler critically injured by ‘flash bang’ during police search
Family of Toddler Injured by SWAT 'Grenade' Faces $1M in Medical Bills
New Low: Sheriff’s Office Claims Infant at Fault for SWAT Team Blowing His Face Apart with Grenade
Ex-Georgia deputy sheriff indicted in flash-bang raid that maimed toddler
Only Cop Charged in Raid That Maimed Baby Is Acquitted: Police Blame Family

This wasn't a "heat of the moment" decision. They reportedly had the guy cornered for 4 hours. There's no reason to send a bomb in.

Wino wrote:

AndyH wrote:Ok - now for a question. Why did the police response in Ferguson include armored vehicles, roof-mounted guns, full battle-rattle, and long guns galore when nobody was shooting at cops, while the response in Dallas was a bunch of officers with Glock 17s and one exploding robot?

Two totally different circumstance happenings - comparing apples and eggs. One was a delayed action (Ferguson) with time to prep for riots; Dallas was in the moment - all the military equipment showed up shortly there after - there were AR15's galore in the vids I've seen - don't recall an MRAP, but don't doubt there was one or two IF Dallas took some.

I agree they're different circumstances - no doubt there - but that was a large component of my point. In Ferguson, we had citizens of the area exercising their 1st Amendment right to assemble and walk on their OWN streets in their OWN neighborhoods to protest the combination of decades of police brutality and the fact that the city was farming them for more than $2,000,000 per year. There were members of clergy on the street, people of all ages from senior citizens to babies. There were no 'riots' until police closed the streets with rows of armored police, wouldn't let people that worked in the area but lived outside the area leave to take care of their kids after work, and were shooting members of clergy with wooden slugs for the crime of trying to keep the peace. Police aimed AR-15s at citizens and journalists and threatened to kill them. Police called citizens animals. The situation was calm and manageable until politicians and police over-reacted.
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/nationa ... -1.1911046
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the ... -ferguson/
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/08/1 ... 78973.html
http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2014/1 ... ing-still/
Imagine what would have happened in Dallas had the police blocked the protesters into a 2 block area, set a curfew, and restricted their protesting to sidewalks only with the further limit that they would be arrested if they stopped moving. Kudos for Dallas area police so far...

In Dallas, the first reports of shots being fired came at about 9PM. The shooter was confirmed dead at 3:09AM. The shooter was killed in a parking garage. Even my local constable's office has an armored HMMV in suave desert pink. Does anyone really think that none of the cities in the greater Dallas area have a vehicle that could have gotten officers close to the shooter in a parking garage?

I understand that this is full of a lot of 'what if' Monday morning quarterbacking - no doubt! All I can say, from the perspective a retired AF guy that's worked with forces from different branches and nations, is that something seems really, really ...not quite right... when a police chief says the only option they had was to send a ROV with C4 in order to subdue a single perp with a rifle.

http://www.dmagazine.com/publications/d ... xas-police
http://www.dallasobserver.com/news/dall ... uv-7132402
http://www.waxahachietx.com/article/201 ... /151119347
http://www.dallasnews.com/news/crime/he ... -think.ece

The department has its own tactical equipment. Recently, police say, they used a new armored vehicle to protect officers and firefighters when a Corinth man armed with an AK-47 began shooting at them at a Far North Dallas property.

http://www.dallasnews.com/news/crime/he ... nation.ece
In late 2014 when a man that claimed to have started his own country because he was angry with the US and Dallas police, then shot at firefighters and police with an AK-47, placed propane tanks and jars of liquid and detonated one, Dallas County police used the MRAP to protect officers. The police arrested the man. We'll ignore the part about him being white. Maybe the MRAP wouldn't fit into the parking garage.

TrueTexan wrote:We could think of the ROV with a bomb as a drone on the ground.

Exactly - and one the US Army has already used at least once in Afghanistan. I guess this tactics transfer is part of our peace dividend.

http://time.com/4398196/dallas-shooting-bomb-robot/

Singer says that while that’s unprecedented on American soil, U.S. soldiers have used a robot abroad in that way. The U.S. military employs roughly 12,000 ground surveillance and bomb-disposal robots, which are most often used in Iraq and Afghanistan to inspect buildings or to determine whether a car, stopped at a check point at a safe distance, was carrying explosives, Singer said. In his 2009 book, Wired for War: The Robotics Revolution and Conflict in the 21st Century, Singer recounted a story in which U.S. soldiers in Iraq duct-taped an explosive to a Marcbot, a knee-high ground robot that looks like a child’s toy truck, and sent it down a narrow alleyway, where a combatant had been hiding. The soldiers detonated the bomb, killing the combatant.

Not that I'm happy with the use of an ROV to kill a person. I have to also state the use of tactical vehicles in this situation may not be possible due to height clearance of the parking garage.

Bisbee wrote:

AndyH wrote: Ok - now for a question. Why did the police response in Ferguson include armored vehicles, roof-mounted guns, full battle-rattle, and long guns galore when nobody was shooting at cops, while the response in Dallas was a bunch of officers with Glock 17s and one exploding robot?

Maybe the guys in Ferguson still needed that stuff... They should have borrowed the battering ram from the LAPD:

But really, the use of a bomb robot, in this case not to defuse a bomb but actually drive in and deliver/detonate one with the intention to kill, sets a very, very bad precedent for civil society. Part of the reason we have the justice system is NOT to allow police to be judge, jury, & executioner. If in the process of trying to apprehend the perpetrator happens to get shot and die, that is chalked up to resisting arrest. If the perp is fatally injured by a flash-grenade delivered by robot or officers in the process of apprehending him, that may also be considered acceptable. But to go in with C-4 and intentionally blow up the perpetrator just because the Chief decided it was too risky for his men to do their job and try to apprehend the perpetrator, even make an attempted show of it, that is profoundly bad decision.

This is not a question of technology here. It is a question of the reasonable limits of police powers.

This would have played out differently if the robot was sent in with a stun-gun or stun-grenade with a camera demanding the perpetrator lay down his weapons. The camera can record the reaction of the perpetrator for court. But in civil society the police cannot be allowed to wantonly kill the perpetrator even if the perp is a murderer. There must be a difference between a murderer and the police. And that line was crossed here.

Outside due process of law, any intentional act of extra-judicial killing is murder.

I hope the city demands the resignation of the Chief over this decision. I hope the US Attorney files charges and bring this matter into the courts to censure this decision at the very least. If not, we will see more of this execution style decisions happening in other police forces in the future. The National Law Enforcement Union president has already expressed such considerations:

Robots have been part of police tactical equipment for years — used to surveil crime scenes, aide in hostage negotiations or defuse bombs — but this was a "unique use of equipment," according to Chuck Canterbury, national president of the Fraternal Order of Police, the largest U.S. law enforcement union.

"I think it's the first time that's been utilized," Canterbury told NPR. "I know that SWAT teams around the country have been training for that scenario, especially with terroristic-type threats, where you know that the offenders do not plan to live through them."

Who determines that offenders do not plan to live through any ordeal? Yes, the police on the scene will.

Remember when the FBI used tanks to launched smoke bombs into the Branch Davidians compound burning it to the ground.

TrueTexan wrote:I have to also state the use of tactical vehicles in this situation may not be possible due to height clearance of the parking garage.

THIS. Eight feet is pretty generous headroom in those places.

I think the problem is that where do the police draw the line on when to use the bomb? It always starts like this, but eventually they will justify it for the smaller events too, and then its just common practice. Thats the scary part. And the more the police use bombs, the more the bad guys will too. Its a fine line for so many reasons, and the wrong step on either side of the line can create real disaster. I don't have the answer though. You cant let the bad guys do what they want, but you cant let the police use bombs without extreme prejudice. Just as less deadly but still a good example of how police can abuse their powers, look at what happened with confiscation laws in several states. A tool that was meant to stop drug dealers and criminals, was used to enrich police officers and politicians personal bank accounts. I know its apples and oranges but my point is, even good guys can do bad things when given the opportunity. And who knows, one day it might just be easier to bomb than to arrest, trail and convict. And not just in sniper situation.

Not going to second guess the decision, however the old maxim, "Power corrupts. Absolutely power corrupts absolutely..." comes to mind. My question is, where does it go from here? What world do my kids inherit? Militarized police forces in every metropolitan area, police on hair trigger alert status, more and more distrust on both sides. Doesnt seem like the situation will ever return to anything resembling "normal". Whatever that was...

SwampGrouch wrote:

TrueTexan wrote:I have to also state the use of tactical vehicles in this situation may not be possible due to height clearance of the parking garage.

THIS. Eight feet is pretty generous headroom in those places.

I agree - especially considering the size of an MRAP, even with the top gunner position removed. I had that in my original post then killed it editing my normally too long train of thought typing. I've not found indications that any city in the area has an armored HMMV, which I know would have worked, though there are regular HMMVs in the area.

I'm just really having trouble getting the taste of the bombot out of my mouth. That's a hell of a slippery slope, and one that will likely win if challenged. "We're awesome - look how fast we stopped the terrorist from shooting all you good people!" ("Ummm...but wait - they weren't shooting at us...")

edit...correction - I actually did leave the "maybe it wouldn't fit in the garage" comment in my post above. Never mind. Crazy day, a couple of sleepless nights in a row. Time for a walk and some reading, I think...

http://www.cnn.com/2015/06/13/us/dallas ... -shooting/

A little over a year ago a guy bought himself an armored vehicle and launched an attack at Dallas Police Department main headquarters. He sprayed the front lobby with rifle fire, left explosive devices at the entrances. Thankfully no officers were killed. Police used a .50 cal rifle to stop the vehicle after a chase. The guy was sitting in the armored van, ranting and raging, refusing to surrender. After a few hours the chief of police gave the order for a sniper to shoot to kill. So not unprecedented for DPD to use direct deadly force after negotiations seem to be making no progress.

gator68 wrote:This wasn't a "heat of the moment" decision. They reportedly had the guy cornered for 4 hours. There's no reason to send a bomb in.

So very much this.

As horrible as the situation was with some many dead and injured, bombing the guy crossed a line that should not have been crossed, and the Dallas PD officers who made the decision and carried out the attack need to be punished. (fines, demotion, maybe firing, I'm not sure jail time would be appropriate under the circumstances)

Simply put the police had the guy trapped and they had all the time in the world. They had the manpower to keep him cornered 24 hours a day and to set up a kill zone at any place he could exit. They could have sat down and waited for him to surrendur, come out again, or just place die of dehydration. They should have set up a seige, not sent in a bomb.