Plans for Taser drone halted after 9 on company’s ethics board resign

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The company best known for developing the Taser says it’s halting plans to develop a Taser-equipped drone.

This photo provided by Axon Enterprise depicts a conceptual design through a computer-generated rendering of a taser drone. Taser developer Axon says it is working to build drones armed with the electric stunning weapons that could fly in schools and “help prevent the next Uvalde, Sandy Hook, or Columbine.” But its own technology advisers quickly panned the idea as a dangerous fantasy.

The board had voted 8-4 a few weeks ago to recommend Axon not proceed with a pilot of the Taser drone and had concerns about introducing weaponizing drones in over-policed communities of color. Smith had rejected that idea in an interview with the AP last week and said he was pressing ahead because he believed the Taser drone could be a viable solution to save lives. He contended the idea needed to be shared as part of the public conversation about school safety and effective ways for police to safely confront attackers.

“We tried from the start to get Axon to understand that its customer has to be the community that a policing agency serves, not the policing agency itself,” one of the board’s members, Barry Friedman, a New York University law professor, said in an interview. “It has been a painful struggle to try to change the calculus there.”

“What Rick is suggesting is a necessary public dialogue was really just jumping over the head of the board,” Friedman said.

 

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