In 2020, the first-ever robotic police canine was leased within the metropolis by former Mayor Bill de Blasio, however the contract was terminated early attributable to criticism from those that discovered it eerie and paying homage to a dystopian society.
(AP Archive)
New York City officers unveiled three new high-tech policing gadgets, together with a robotic canine that critics referred to as creepy when it first joined the police pack two-and-a-half years in the past.
The new gadgets, which additionally embrace a GPS tracker for stolen vehicles and a cone-shaped safety robotic, might be rolled out in a fashion that’s “clear, constant and all the time finished in shut collaboration with the individuals we serve,” mentioned police Commissioner Keechant Sewell, who joined Mayor Eric Adams and different officers at a Times Square press convention the place the safety robotic and the mechanical canine nicknamed Digidog have been displayed on Tuesday.
“Digidog is out of the pound,” mentioned Adams, a Democrat and former police officer. “Digidog is now part of the toolkit that we are using.”
The metropolis’s first robotic police canine was leased in 2020 by Adams’ predecessor, former Mayor Bill de Blasio, however the metropolis’s contract for the gadget was minimize brief after critics derided it as creepy and dystopian.
Adams mentioned he will not bow to anti-robot canine stress.
“A few loud people were opposed to it and we took a step back,” the mayor mentioned. “That is not how I operate. I operate on looking at what’s best for the city.”
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Rescuing hostages
Adams mentioned the remote-controlled, 70-pound (32-kg) Digidog might be deployed in dangerous conditions like hostage standoffs beginning this summer time.
“If you have a barricaded suspect, if you have someone that’s inside a building that is armed, instead of sending police in there, you send Digidog in there,” he mentioned. “So these are smart ways of using good technologies.”
The monitoring system referred to as StarChase will permit police to launch a GPS tag that can connect itself to a stolen automobile in order that officers can monitor the automobile’s location. The New York Police Department’s pilot program for utilizing the system will final 90 days, officers mentioned.
The Autonomous Security Robot, which Adams in comparison with a Roomba, might be deployed contained in the Times Square subway station in a seven-month pilot program beginning this summer time, police officers mentioned.
The gadget, utilized in buying centres and different areas for a number of years, will at first be joined by a human accomplice, police mentioned.
Civil libertarians and police reform advocates questioned the necessity for high-tech gadgets.
“This newest announcement is simply the latest instance of how Mayor Adams permits unmitigated overspending of the NYPD’s massively bloated funds,” said Ileana Mendez-Penate, program director of Communities United for Police Reform. “The NYPD is buying robot dogs and other fancy tech while New Yorkers can’t access food stamps because city agencies are short-staffed, and New Yorkers are getting evicted because they can’t access their right to counsel.”
Albert Fox Cahn, executive director of the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project, said: “The NYPD is turning bad science fiction into terrible policing. New York deserves real safety, not a knockoff RoboCop.”
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Source: AP
Source: www.trtworld.com
