Three supervisors who rejected the coverage from the start joined dozens of protesters on Monday outdoors Metropolis Corridor to induce the board to vary course. They chanted and held indicators with phrases like “All of us noticed that film … No Killer Robots.”
Supervisor Dean Preston was amongst them, and on Tuesday he advised his colleagues the general public hadn’t been given sufficient time to voice their considerations about such a urgent subject.
“The individuals of San Francisco have spoken loud and clear: There isn’t any place for killer police robots in our metropolis,” he mentioned in a press release after the vote. “We ought to be engaged on methods to lower the usage of pressure by native regulation enforcement, not giving them new instruments to kill individuals.”
The vote was the results of a brand new state regulation that requires police departments to stock tools together with sure weapons, grenades, armoured automobiles and battering rams and to hunt specific approval for his or her use. To date, solely San Francisco and Oakland have mentioned deadly robots as a part of that regulation. Oakland police wished to arm robots with shotguns however backed down within the face of public opposition, as an alternative choosing pepper spray.
Some San Francisco officers wished to proceed with permitting robots to make use of lethal pressure in sure circumstances, arguing nothing substantive had modified to warrant a reversal. However the vote to advance the broader police tools coverage – together with the ban on deadly robots – handed unanimously.
It nonetheless permits police to make use of robots to take a look at doubtlessly harmful scenes in order that officers can keep again.
“Having robots which have eyes and ears and might take away bombs, which occurs once in a while, is one thing that we wish the police division to do whereas we proceed to have this very controversial dialogue,” mentioned Supervisor Aaron Peskin, who introduced ahead final week’s movement round the usage of robots.
The brand new coverage wants one other vote to take impact.