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Pepper Spray Drones Do Crowd Control For Indian Police
Pepper spray-armed drones are now being used for crowd control by police in India.
(Indian police now use pepper-spray drones)
Yashasvi Yadav, police chief of Lucknow, said his officers have successfully test-flown the newly purchased drones with a view to better crowd control."The results were brilliant. We have managed to work out how to use it to precisely target the mob in winds and congested areas," Yadav told AFP.
"Pepper is non-lethal but very effective in mob control. We can spray from different heights to have maximum results," he said.
The city's police force has bought five drones, costing about 600,000 rupees ($9,600) each, with their introduction planned for later this month, he said.
The unmanned drones are equipped with high-resolution cameras. They can carry two kilograms (4.4 pounds) of pepper and fly within a one-kilometre radius of their operator.
SF author Larry Niven nailed this prediction forty years ago copsyes with the copseyes from his 1972 story Cloak of Anarchy:
Someone at police headquarters had expected that. Twice the usual number of copseyes floated overhead, waiting. Gold dots against blue, basketball-sized, twelve feet up. Each a television eye and a sonic stunner, each a hookup to police headquarters, they were there to enforce the law of the Park.
(Read more about Niven's copseyes)
Via Yahoo News; thanks to our friends at frolix_8 for the lead on this story. (See the robot tracking devices from Philip K. Dick's 1960 novel Vulcan's Hammer for more fictional predecessors.)
Scroll down for more stories in the same category. (Story submitted 4/1/2015)
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