and so...
...Skynet begins it relentless assault on the human race.
A mobile home in Tennessee was left a smoking ruin last month after it was attacked by a heavily armed police robot firing advanced triple-warhead gas grenades. Despite the uncompromising tactics employed by the no-nonsense tin cop, and the fact that satellite and heat-sensing technology had apparently confirmed that the …
In a supposed democracy that the police should have such robots and ordanance to 'control crowds'. This is the sort of thing a police state employs to subdue the citizens and prevent them fighting back against the gross abuses of the ruling class. But then I guess we have exactly the same in the UK and most of Europe - in fact, I would guess that a look at the police and their ability to muster deadly force the police of all these supposedly 'free' and 'democratic' countries muster far more deadly force for use on their own people than their military can muster to protect those same people (certainly that is the case in the UK).
As far as the police in this country are concerned, people are no law abiding citizens anymore, but problems that need to be controlled or managed, hence the general "us and them" attitude and demeanour. The police are no longer part of the community, they want to CONTROL the community and so they dress up like paramilitaries and are armed to the teeth with an assortment of "non-lethal" weapons that can easily be used in ways that become lethal (Ian Tomlinson anyone?)
Also: Why does it say "we are sorry you didn't like this post" when I downvote one.
I would imagine moderatrix (or El Reg) being glad that moronic commentards are quibbling amongst themselves ?
PS: I didn't downvote any post on this article - it's a general question.
The Los Angles police department recently tried a novel approach to a barricade situation in a residential area. Having spent a small fortune on a remote control loader (one of those combination fork lift / bucket truck things) for their bomb squad they brought this in and proceeded to tear the back off the house 'in order to get a better look'. They took out substantial chunks of the neighbors houses while they were about it -- obviously this was a bit more tricky to drive than a R/C toy. Having located and killed the suspect ("looking at me in a funny way" is usually grounds for being shot in the LA area)(the sheriff's department is notorious for this) they then went into damage control mode (CYA damage control; I guess the homeowners were left to pick up the pieces as best they can).
Why do we give people these toys? Whenever I see heavily armed security people I feel uncomfortable because I know that the most likely thing they'll do in an emergency is panic, shoot anything that moves and then cook up some fantastic tale about how they felt in fear of their lives.
GPS: probably not a "tracking device", probably just the cops checking the location of his mobile phone (sorry, 'cellphone') in order to determine his likely location. On arrival at the GPS coordinates they found a trailer home, used a heat sensor to identify a hot-spot in the trailer, and decided that he was in there.
Of course he may not have actually been there at the time, it could be that he'd left his phone inside and there was a hot area from an oven/heater/whatever. So maybe he didn't even need to escape the mayhem.
p.s. "extraterrestrial explanation" icon: GPS, innit.
It doesn't really matter, a few more dead people just means a little more cover up to do.
The American police are on a par here with the British ones - who time and again are judged to have 'acted correctly' when blasting innocent people to death on tube trains, kicking people to death on London streets or dragging the disabled all over the road - all of them for perhaps considering stating the obvious - we live in a polcie state where the police can - and do - do what every they damned well like.
I can't really see that going down well in the national parks, or any field of crop which rather limits its range of application. Even a good grass fire in the heat we're currently experiencing can be quite devastating.
It must be why they call some police "Smokeys" (or is that too 70's?)