Use of robot to kill Dallas gunman may be first for U.S. police

In the hours following one of the nation's deadliest attacks on police officers, the Dallas Police Department may have also made history as the first U.S. law enforcement agency to deploy a tactical robot to kill an assailant.

As police searched for those responsible for killing five police officers and wounding nine other people at a Black Lives Matter protest near downtown Dallas late Thursday, they cornered a gunman in the parking garage of a nearby college and negotiated with him for hours, without success.

Ultimately, police said, the standoff boiled down to two options: Send in officers to try and apprehend the gunman or send in an armed robot to remotely remove the threat.

Commanders settled on option two.

"We saw no other option but to use our bomb robot and place [an explosive] device on its extension," Dallas Police Chief David Brown said at a news conference Friday. "Other options would have exposed our officers to grave danger."

The gunman, believed to be 25-year-old Micah Xavier Johnson, was killed by the robot and no additional officers were harmed......http://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2016/07/08/Use-of-robot-to-kill-Dallas-gunman-may-be-first-for-US-police/8481467999613/
 8/7/16
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