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San Francisco police permitted to deploy ‘killer robots’

Daily SF News — Wed, 26 Apr 2023 19:40:20 +0000

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — The unabashedly liberal city of San Francisco became the unlikely supporter of armed police robots last week after bosses approved limited use of the remote-controlled devices.

San Francisco’s board of directors voted 8-3 on Tuesday to allow police to use explosive-armed robots in extreme situations where lives are at stake and no other alternative is available. The approval comes as police departments across the US are increasingly scrutinized for the use of militarized equipment and violence in the face of years of reckoning with the criminal justice system.

The vote was prompted by a new California law that requires police to inventory military equipment such as flashbang grenades, assault rifles and armored vehicles and obtain public approval for their use.

To date, police in only two California cities — San Francisco and Oakland — have publicly discussed the use of robots as part of this process. Across the country, police have used robots for the past decade to communicate with barricaded suspects, enter potentially dangerous spaces and, on rare occasions, use deadly force.

Dallas police became the first to kill a suspect with a robot in 2016 when they detonated explosives during a standoff with a sniper who killed five officers and injured nine others.

The recent vote in San Francisco renewed a fierce debate sparked years ago about the ethics of using robots to kill a suspect and the doors such a policy could open. Experts say that despite advancing technology, the use of such robots remains largely rare.

Michael White, a professor in Arizona State University’s School of Criminology and Criminal Justice, said even if robotics companies present deadlier options at trade shows, that doesn’t mean police will buy them. White said companies were making specialized claymores to shut down barricades and were trying to put facial recognition software on body-worn cameras, but departments didn’t want them.

“Because the communities have not supported that level of surveillance. It’s hard to say what will happen in the future, but I think armed robots might be the next thing that departments don’t want because the communities say they don’t want them,” White said.

Robots or not, San Francisco official David Chiu, who authored California’s bill while he was in the state legislature, said communities deserve more transparency from law enforcement and a say in the use of militarized equipment.

San Francisco “happened to be the city that dealt with an issue that I certainly hadn’t considered when the law went through the process, and that dealt with the issue of so-called killer robots,” said Chiu, now a prosecutor.

In 2013, police kept their distance and used a robot to lift a tarp and find him hidden underneath as part of a manhunt into the alleged Boston Marathon bombing. Three years later, Dallas police officers dispatched an explosive-laden bomb disposal robot into an alcove of El Centro College to break an hour-long standoff with sniper Micah Xavier Johnson, who had opened fire on officers in protest at police brutality.

Police detonated the explosives, becoming the first department to use a robot to kill a suspect. A grand jury dismissed the charges against the officers, and then-Dallas Police Chief David O. Brown was widely praised for his handling of the shooting and the standoff.

“There was this hint of doom about how police departments would use robots in the six months after Dallas,” said Mark Lomax, former executive director of the National Tactical Officers Association. “But since then I hadn’t heard much about this platform being used to neutralize suspects … until San Francisco politics were in the news.”

The issue of potentially lethal robots has yet to enter public discourse in California, as more than 500 police and sheriff’s departments are seeking approval for their military-grade gun use policy under the state’s new law. Oakland police abandoned the idea of arming robots with shotguns after public backlash, but will equip them with pepper spray.

Many of the already-approved usage guidelines are vague about armed robots, and some departments may assume they have implicit permission to use them, said John Lindsay-Poland, who oversees implementation of the new law as part of the American Friends Service Committee has monitored .

“I think most departments aren’t willing to use their robots for deadly force,” he said, “but I suspect there are other departments that would say, ‘We want that authority.'”

San Francisco Supervisor Aaron Peskin initially suggested that police should be banned from using robotic violence against people. But the department said that while it would not equip robots with firearms, it wanted the ability to plant explosives to breach barricades or disorient a suspect.

The approved policy allows only a limited number of senior officers to authorize the use of robots as lethal force – and only when lives are at stake and after alternative force or de-escalation tactics have been exhausted or concluded they are not in use would be able to subdue the suspect in other ways.

The San Francisco Police Department says the dozen working ground-based robots the department already has have never been used to deliver an explosive device, but rather to assess bombs or provide eyesight in poor visibility.

“We live in a time when unthinkable mass violence is becoming more and more commonplace. We need the option to save lives if we have this type of tragedy in our city,” San Francisco Police Chief Bill Scott said in a statement.

The Los Angeles Police Department has no armed robots or drones, SWAT Lt. Ruben Lopez. He declined to give details as to why his department didn’t obtain a permit for armed robots, but confirmed that they would need a permit to use one.

“It’s a violent world, so we’ll cross that bridge when we get there,” he said.

When it comes to deadly force, there are often better options than robots because bombs can cause collateral damage to buildings and people, said Lomax, the former leader of the group’s tactical officers. “For many departments, especially in populous cities, these factors will pose too much of a risk,” he said.

Last year, the New York City Police Department returned a leased robot dog earlier than expected after a public backlash, suggesting civilians are not yet comfortable with the idea of machines chasing humans.

Maine police have used robots on at least two occasions to deliver explosives intended to knock down walls or doors and end standoffs.

In June 2018, police in the tiny town of Dixmont, Maine, intended to use a robot to deliver a small explosive that would tear down an outside wall, but the house’s roof collapsed instead.

The man inside was shot twice after the blast, survived and did not plead reckless behavior with a firearm. The state later settled its lawsuit against police alleging they used the explosives improperly.

In April 2020, Maine Police used a small charge to blast a door off a home during a standoff. The suspect was fatally shot by police as he walked through the damaged door and fired a gun.

As of this week, the attorney general’s office had not completed its review of tactics used in the 2018 standoff, including the use of the explosive charge. A 2020 report of the incident only addressed the fatal exchange of fire.

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San Francisco will enable police to deploy robots that kill

Mon, 30 Jan 2023 00:28:21 +0000

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Supervisors in San Francisco voted Tuesday to give city police the ability to use potentially lethal, remote-controlled robots in emergency situations — following an emotionally charged debate that reflected divisions on the politically liberal board over support for law enforcement .

The vote was 8-3, with the majority agreeing to grant police the option despite strong objections from civil liberties and other police oversight groups. Opponents said the authority would lead to the further militarization of a police force already too aggressive with poor and minority communities.

Supervisor Connie Chan, a member of the committee that forwarded the proposal to the full board, said she understood concerns about use of force but that “according to state law, we are required to approve the use of these equipments. So here we are, and it’s definitely not an easy discussion.”

The San Francisco Police Department said it does not have pre-armed robots and has no plans to arm robots with guns. But the department could deploy robots equipped with explosive charges “to contact, incapacitate, or disorient violent, armed, or dangerous suspect” when lives are at stake, SFPD spokesperson Allison Maxie said in a statement.

“Robots equipped in this manner would only be used in extreme circumstances to save or prevent further loss of innocent lives,” she said.

Supervisors amended the proposal Tuesday to specify that officers could use robots only after using alternative force or de-escalation tactics, or concluding they would not be able to subdue the suspect through those alternative means. Only a limited number of high-ranking officers could authorize use of robots as a deadly force option.

San Francisco police currently have a dozen functioning ground robots used to assess bombs or provide eyes in low visibility situations, the department says. They were acquired between 2010 and 2017, and not once have they been used to deliver an explosive device, police officials said.

But explicit authorization was required after a new California law went into effect this year requiring police and sheriffs departments to inventory military-grade equipment and seek approval for their use.

The state law was authored last year by San Francisco City Attorney David Chiu while he was an assembly member. It is aimed at giving the public a forum and voice in the acquisition and use of military-grade weapons that have a negative effect on communities, according to the legislation.

A federal program has long dispensed grenade launchers, camouflage uniforms, bayonets, armored vehicles and other surplus military equipment to help local law enforcement.

In 2017, then-President Donald Trump signed an order reviving the Pentagon program after his predecessor, Barack Obama, curtailed it in 2015, triggered in part by outrage over the use of military gear during protests in Ferguson, Missouri, after the shooting death of Michael Brown.

San Francisco police said late Tuesday that no robots were obtained from military surplus, but some were purchased with federal grant money.

Like many places around the US, San Francisco is trying to balance public safety with treasured civilian rights such as privacy and the ability to live free of excessive police oversight. In September, supervisors agreed to a trial run allowing police to access in real time private surveillance camera feeds in certain circumstances.

Debate on Tuesday ran more than two hours with members on both sides accusing the other of reckless fear mongering.

Supervisor Rafael Mandelman, who voted in favor of the policy authorization, said he was troubled by rhetoric painting the police department as untrustworthy and dangerous.

“I think there’s larger questions raised when progressives and progressive policies start looking to the public like they are anti-police,” he said. “I think that is bad for progressives. I think it’s bad for this Board of Supervisors. I think it’s bad for Democrats nationally.”

Board President Shamann Walton, who voted against the proposal, pushed back, saying it made him not anti-police, but “pro people of color.”

“We continuously are being asked to do things in the name of increasing weaponry and opportunities for negative interaction between the police department and people of color,” he said. “This is just one of those things.”

The San Francisco Public Defender’s office sent a letter Monday to the board saying that granting police “the ability to kill community members remotely” goes against the city’s progressive values. The office wanted the board to reinstate language barring police from using robots against any person in an act of force.

On the other side of the San Francisco Bay, the Oakland Police Department dropped a similar proposal after public backlash.

The first time a robot was used to deliver explosives in the US was in 2016, when Dallas police sent in an armed robot that killed a holed-up sniper who had killed five officers in an ambush.

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San Francisco debates letting police deploy robots that kill

Tue, 10 Jan 2023 00:09:03 +0000

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Supervisors in San Francisco held a heated debate Tuesday over whether to give city police the ability to use potentially lethal, remote-controlled robots in emergency situations, with both sides accusing the other of reckless fearmongering.

Police oversight groups are urging the 11-member Board of Supervisors to reject the idea, saying it would lead to further militarization of a police force already too aggressive with poor and minority communities. They said the parameters under which use would be allowed are too vague.

“Robots equipped in this manner would only be used in extreme circumstances to save or prevent further loss of innocent lives,” she said.

The proposed policy does not lay out specifics for how the weapons can and cannot be equipped, leaving open the option to arm them. “Robots will only be used as a deadly force option when risk of loss of life to members of the public or officers is imminent and outweighs any other force option available to SFPD,” it says.

The city’s board members are staunch Democrats who favor gun control, reproductive freedoms and civil rights protections, but they are deeply divided on support for law enforcement.

Several supervisors said it shocked them that a city accustomed to protesting the use of military drones would entertain the idea of allowing a robot to possibly kill a person. But others said police were making a reasonable request and were only carving out permission in case of catastrophe.

“Everything that was said in this hearing, I don’t see how a robot being armed with certain weaponry would save lives,” said Shamann Walton, president of the Board of Supervisors.

The vote comes under a new California law that requires police and sheriffs departments to inventory military-grade equipment and seek approval for their use. San Francisco police currently have a dozen functioning ground robots used to assess bombs or provide eyes in low visibility situations, the department says. They were acquired between 2010 and 2017.

San Francisco police did not immediately respond to a question about how the robots were acquired, but a federal program has dispensed grenade launchers, camouflage uniforms, bayonets, armored vehicles and other surplus military equipment to help local law enforcement.

The first time a robot was used to deliver explosives in the US was in 2016, when Dallas police sent in an armed robot that killed a holed-up sniper who had killed five officers in an ambush.

The San Francisco Public Defender’s office sent a letter Monday to the board saying that granting police “the ability to kill community members remotely” goes against the city’s progressive values. The office would like the board to reinstate language barring police from using robots against any person in an act of force.

On the other side of the San Francisco Bay, the Oakland Police Department dropped a similar proposal after public backlash.

The post San Francisco debates letting police deploy robots that kill appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.

San Francisco will enable police to deploy robots that kill

Fri, 06 Jan 2023 00:25:18 +0000