The Daily Star – by Joe Mahoney
COOPERSTOWN — When police are called out to deal with shootings, hostage incidents or other emergencies, they rarely know what’s on the other side of the door separating them from the possible mayhem inside.
Entering a barricaded home can pose especially grave dangers, according to law enforcement officials. But to spare officers from having to jeopardize their lives in such situations, police agencies across the country are turning to high-tech equipment such as tactical robots.
These portable, battery-operated devices have the capability to traverse tricky terrain and capture video and audio recordings from the interior of a building in which dangerous and hostile suspects may be lurking.
The Otsego County Sheriff’s Department has decided it wants to buy one such robot, using some $27,000 in funding from the state Department of Homeland Security.
The purchase has gotten the green light from the Public Safety Committee of the county’s Board of Representatives. The full board is expected to act on the request today.
“This is just another tool,” said Sheriff Richard Devlin Jr. “Hopefully, having it will prevent us from having to put officers in harm’s way. Equipment can be replaced. But with officers it’s a different story.”
Manufactured by a firm based in Sunnyvale, Ca., the Avatar III robot is about the size of a desk telephone, looks like a small tank, and is capable of negotiating staircases, grassy areas, sand and other terrain.
It is operated via remote control, allowing the operators to keep a safe distance from suspected explosive devices or other hazardous situations.
When the equipment is delivered to the Sheriff’s Department, Devlin said, two members of the Sheriff’s Department will get training from the manufacturer’s representatives on how to use it. Those two, in turn, will train other members of the department who could be called on to operate it.
http://www.thedailystar.com/news/local_news/article_e82689f3-5da7-591f-b770-d5c9033bb8ae.html
Where are all of these barricaded home, office, factory shoot outs happening? Where are all of the dead oinkers? I must have missed the news, because I have not heard of multiple, nation wide mass murders of police officers.. Crime is going down overall, more people have guns and ammo, what DO the police need with all of this crap? And, I cannot believe the lengths these numb skulls will go to attempt to justify all of this hardware.
Amen, Bill! You said it. It’s absolutely ridiculous.
I’m thinking the elite are trying to create a Robot revolution and it’s gonna hit hard while we are all distracted with the war rhetoric. (That’s not to say that the war rhetoric is unimportant. I’m just saying that this will be a technological revolution that the elite will slip in during this period of crisis that we are in.)
Robots, robots and more robots!
I don’t know what is more in demand these days for the government/corporations: Tanks for the police OR robots and drones.
Either way it is not good. Every day now there are more and more stories of robots being upgraded and mass produced. It’s almost becoming like the Computer/Internet Revolution of the 90s.
Here’s another Robot story:
Robots help deliver meals for patients
http://www.westerndailypress.co.uk/Robots-help-deliver-meals-patients/story-22867113-detail/story.html
With the depletion of the workforce, robots taking over the jobs is NOT going to help the situation improve. However, we all know that’s exactly what the elite want. Depopulation, Agenda 21, etc.
“Equipment can be replaced. But with officers it’s a different story.”
So cops are irreplaceable?
That WOULD be nice.
Id give them these LONG before a mrap or drone so long as it can not fire a weapon.