LAPD Robo Dogs

Last Tuesday, the LA Public Safety Committee after much “deliberation” voted in favor to approve the implementation of the LAPD robot dog.

LAPD SWAT will be the sole operator of the robot dogs during their operations. The robot dogs are described to be “quadruped unmanned ground vehicles”, or literal uncanny mechanical dog, their loadout capacity includes a robotic arm to open doors, thermal imaging cameras, and operational use from around 164 feet to 3,341 feet.

Although the city commission might be citing the intention for allowing the PD to use these high-tech instruments is to decrease crime and facilitate more efficient law enforcement activity, Matyos Kidane of the Stop LAPD Spying Coalition along with know their real intention. Kidane said in an interview with Knock LA, “This technology will be used to target poor Black and brown communities, over one-third of instances of drone use by SWAT were in the communities policed by 77th Division, based in South Central Los Angeles.”

This technology is about surveillance, to facilitate more police violence, and community powerlessness in the face of increase militarization of the state law enforcement.

The dystopian times are here, capitalism is reaching another threshold, social strife and economic degradation is in the midst, so the state prepares. Hence why the state is not relying on public funds for the robot project, Sergio Perez, the city controller’s chief of accountability and oversight, explains

“The $$$ for this robot dog isn’t coming from the general fund – which would subject it to more transparency and scrutiny. Instead, the LAPD is relying on dollars from the secretive Los Angeles Police Foundation to purchase this weapon.”

Increase in surveillance technology is not a demand from the LA communities, yet the state has elected their own plans of intervention. And there aren’t any patterns they’ll stop to consider their marginalized constituents’ wills, no, the state will continue to intervene and mold society without direct democracy for as long as they can. LA, like always is a site of social experimentation for the rest of the US, whatever works here, will be permeated to other cities and states. Reaction against these times is necessary, before it’s too late.