The San Francisco Police Department is seeking to legalize using robots to haunt suspects and kill criminals.
Recently, the police department submitted a new proposal that, if approved, would execute dangerous offenders and apprehend criminals in exceptional instances.
In the new proposed policy, the department is requesting to upgrade its unmanned robots’ capacity to inflict lethal force in situations where someone’s life is in danger or other dangerous scenarios.
In a report released by American Tribunal, it was revealed that the “San Francisco police department currently has 17 remote-controlled, military-style robots in its inventory. These are typically used in situations to defuse bombs or contain hazardous materials.”
Moreover, the policy proposal would reportedly be sent for Board of Supervisors’ approval next week after the draft policy was unanimously accepted by the rules committee last week.
“The original policy they submitted was actually silent on whether robots could deploy lethal force,” Board of Supervisors Rules Committee Aaron Peskin said, who initially suggested to limit the SFPD’s authority over the department’s robots, stating that “Robots shall not be used as a Use of Force against any person” but was later on rejected by the police department.
“Robots will only be used as a deadly force option when risk of loss of life to members of the public or officers are imminent and outweigh any other force option available to SFPD,” the policy proposal read.
Peskin also explained the department had made the case for the reason that “there could be scenarios where deployment of lethal force was the only option.”
Furthermore, the department requested to utilize remote-controlled robots where they could tie the explosives to the machines and use it to blow up a suspect.
“The robots listed in this section shall not be utilized outside of training and simulations, criminal apprehensions, critical incidents, exigent circumstances, executing a warrant or during suspicious device assessment.” The department stated in the policy draft.
“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. SFPD has always had the ability to use lethal force when the risk of loss of life to members of the public or officers are imminent and outweigh any other force option available,” they claimed and added that the department “does not have any sort of specific plan in place as the unusually dangerous or spontaneous operations where SFPD’s need to deliver deadly force via robot would be a rare and exceptional circumstance.”
However, the proposed policy has sparked outrage among several officials and US citizens.
“We are living in a dystopian future, where we debate whether the police may use robots to execute citizens without a trial, jury, or judge. This is not normal. No legal professional or ordinary resident should carry on as if it is normal.” Tifanei Moyer, senior staff attorney at the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area lamented.
