Why police robots shoot to kill

A suspect in the Dallas shooting was killed by a police robot.

(Image credit: Stewart F. House/Getty Images)

published 8 July 2016

When police finally ended their standoff with Dallas shooting suspect Micah X. Johnson, they did it not with a gun, but with an explosive device. As Dallas Police Chief David Brown explained at a Friday morning press conference, authorities saw "no other option but to use our bomb robot and place a device on its extension for it to detonate where the suspect was." This tactic lessened officers' exposure to "grave danger," Brown explained.

But, The Atlantic reported Friday, it also is likely to bring up "intense ethical debates about when and how police deploy robots in this matter." Here's Seth Stoughton, assistant professor of law at the University of South Carolina, defending police use of deadly robots:

"The circumstances that justify lethal force justify lethal force in essentially every form," he said. "If someone is shooting at the police, the police are, generally speaking, going to be authorized to eliminate that threat by shooting them, or by stabbing them with a knife, or by running them over with a vehicle. Once lethal force is justified and appropriate, the method of delivery — I doubt it's legally relevant." [The Atlantic]