It says something about the political culture and governance of San Francisco that in the span of just a few years, the city can go from an enthusiastic embrace of dramatic cuts to the police budget, to embracing re-funding the police, to now an embrace of police robots equipped and enabled to use lethal force.
Under this policy, SFPD is authorized to use these robots to carry out deadly force in extremely limited situations when risk to loss of life to members of the public or officers is imminent and outweighs any other force option available. 2/5
— Rafael Mandelman (@RafaelMandelman) November 30, 2022
Good news, Omni Consumer Products. We’ve found an American city that’s ready to place an order for the occasionally malfunctioning, highly lethal ED-209 model. With any luck, the city might even shell out for that renovation program and spare parts for 25 years.
Was there really so little policy space between “abolish the police” and emulating the villains from RoboCop? Could we try deploying some robo-poop-scoopers on the street first?