Dallas Police Chief David Brown told reporters Friday morning that his department ended a standoff with a sniper who shot 12 police officers by blowing him up using a “bomb robot.”
The decision to use the bomb disposal robot to take out the suspect, Micah Xavier Johnson, may have been the first of its kind in the United States. While bomb disposal robots have been used for things other than disposing of bombs – San Jose police used one to deliver a phone and pizza to a suicidal man – it's not clear if any agency has used it to kill a shooter.
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"We saw no other option but to use our bomb robot and place a device on its extension for it to detonate where the suspect was," Brown said. "Other options would have exposed our officers to great danger. The suspect is deceased as a result of detonating the bomb."
Brown did not elaborate on the exact device his agency used.
According to a story from The Verge, defense technology expert Peter Singer said he believes it's the first time a law enforcement agency used such a device to take out a suspect, not just to dispose of a bomb.