We’re sending in a pizza…BOOM!
Thanks Whack-a-Mole!
That’s not a bad idea. Send “food” in while negotiating with the guy.
The device may have been a booby-trapped cell phone
Shades of how the Israelis got rid of the Engineer?
I’m not sure making the analogy of a police action to a political assassination is a great place to go from here.
From here:
This is how it starts: the killer robots are developed by the police, and then turn on the people they are supposed to serve. (I can’t believe I’m the first to reference this. Are none of you old enough to remember when they were trying to push Tom Selleck as a movie star?)
Stranger
As to the robot being destroyed by the bomb it delivered, the military has used directional mines such as the Vietnam-era Claymore.
Verge article on the use of the robot as a killing device by law enforcement, which is believed to be a first in the US. They have been used in similar ways in Iraq by US forces.
The Dallas PD has cell phones with plastic explosives in them on hand?
That is damn frightening.
It doesn’t seem as though they would admit it; they could never use it again.
Really?
Go to a local fireworks store. Purchase large fireworks. They’re full of gunpowder. Wire them up together and you have a quick-made bomb. Could probably cobble together something with gasoline (also widely available everywhere) and a remote detonator. The bomb squad guys know a lot about bombs to do their jobs, I’m sure that if they don’t have one lying around they could put one together in fairly short order if needed.
Also, explosives do have some industrial uses, it’s possible they contacted a demolition company for some supplies.
I don’t think you can kill someone with firecracker gunpowder. Piss them off, annoy them, surely.
What is this story about the robot taking a cell phone filled with explosives to the guy?
Instead of fireworks, you could just buy reloading powder, but I bet a large city bomb squad has explosives. The way they neutralize suspicious packages is to put them in a bomb containment barrel and set a charge off on top of it.
That said, looks like they could have hit him with a huge shot of tear gas and effectively disabled him. I guess they might have thought he’d still come out shooting.
Missed edit.
Firecracker gunpowder is what the Tsarnaevs used in Boston, IIRC. Even then, seems like somebody gets killed nearly yearly by fireworks.
As has been said, the bomb squad will have bombs available to blow up other bombs.
It may have been on page 467 in the manual, or quick thinking on the bomb squad.
You jest, but in a serious application of Pizza delivered by a robot, the results were amazing:
The first thing I thought of was the 1985 MOVE bombing in Philadelphia, which I learned about here on the Dope some years ago. That involved a bomb dropped from a (presumably non-robotic) state police helicopter in a residential area, killing 11 people and starting a fire that destroyed 61 houses.
At least the Dallas explosion took place in a parking garage, with a much lower chance of collateral damage. There might not have been any better options if the suspect was in a highly defensible spot and threatening to kill other people with his own bombs, but the whole thing is incredibly surreal.
Sure you can - people have even done it accidently. The bigger the firecracker the more dangerous it is.
But, as noted, bomb squads typically have small charges for controlled detonations so it might have been one of those.
If Dallas PD did NOT have a remote-controlled bomb (such as the US Army uses) when the shooting started, I’m guessing it took less than an hour from “Hey Army! Dallas PD Here -we have a situation - could you loan us…” to delivery of the device to the shooter’s location.
Maybe another 30 minutes to get it into position.
PD’s now have tanks, sniper rifles (real ones) and gawd knows what other military gear.
Remote anti-personnel mines are well within the Arming of Your Town’s PD scope.
Like Clint Eastwood and his USAF jet in Tarantula.