The Dallas shootings have ushered in a very new world for U.S. citizens. For the very first time, a drone has been used on U.S. soil to kill an American without trial or charges.
The suspected shooter On Thursday tragic killings, U.S. Army veteran Micah Xavier Johnson, was, according to police and press reports, holed up in a parking garage and would not give himself up. After hours of what police claimed were fruitless negotiations with Johnson, a weaponized robot was sent to where he was hiding and blown up, taking Johnson with it.
Get past the horror of what Johnson was accused of doing and think about that precedent for a moment. Is it not chilling?
RPI regular contributor Peter Van Buren, a retired State Department official who did a tour in Iraq, put a very fine point on the “robot” bomb:
We have the first law enforcement use of drone (albeit with wheels not wings) to kill someone w/out trial in Americahttp://motherboard.vice.com/read/dallas-pd-using-a-bomb-robot-to-kill-a-suspect-is-an-unprecedented-shift-in-policing?utm_source=mbtwitter …
Indeed, even without wings, this was a drone sent in to kill an American suspected of a crime.
Police claim that continuing the negotiations was pointless and attempting to capture him would have put officers at risk. He was supposedly shooting. While no sane person wants police officers to be killed, risk is something we are told they willingly accept when they sign up for police duty. There are plenty of low-risk jobs out there.
The word is getting around, remember getting these for “other” third world countries…
No other policemen got shot taking the murderer out . Let that sink in .
A US citizen who was in the act of murdering police officers…what’s the problem?