Technology like Batman against getaway cars: New York police equip rifle with GPS launcher – progress does not stop at the questions of fighting crime. The New York Police Department (NYPD) is making great strides in this regard. The latest coup: three innovations to help officials. One of them is some kind of launcher. She fires Coke can-style sticky projectiles. Included: a GPS tracker for getaway vehicles. But there are critics.
A device that could also come from one of the three parts of the “Dark Knight” trilogy by exceptional director Christopher Nolan. It is intended to compensate for or even completely eliminate dangerous high-speed car chases, in which officials or bystanders are regularly injured or even killed. This is what you read in a report by the car portal “Carscoops”. The name of the company behind this device: “StarChase”. The New York Police Department has now entered into a subscription with the company.
Financial scope:
20,000 US dollars, currently around 18,000 euros. The source does not say whether this is a monthly or annual amount. In any case, launchers are provided for these buzzers, which, according to the “New York Times”, can be attached either to the front of a patrol car or to the lower barrel of an ArmaLite AR-15 rifle. The soda can-like bolt it fires is said to be fast enough to hit a getaway vehicle at close range. At the same time, however, it flies so slowly and was designed in such a way that, according to the article, it cannot harm bystanders.
The reason: The front of this bullet is soft and consists of a sticky cushion. This sticks strongly when it comes into contact with the rear or flank of a getaway car. From there, the adhesive tracking device sends out a GPS pulse, which the police can follow to a vehicle stop. At the same time, officials at the usual checkpoints or checkpoints where they take radar measurements or usually check for drunk driving can be made aware of the data in order to draw a net around fugitives.
21st century policing calls for 21st century technology. The NYPD upgraded its public safety toolkit and revealed three new technologies which will further protect New Yorkers. #getstuffdone#GSDpic.twitter.com/FKyWW0xvqu
— NYPD Chief of Department (@NYPDChiefOfDept) April 12, 2023
“What we want is to eliminate as many high-speed car chases around the city as possible,” said New York Mayor Eric Adams. According to StarChase, the GPS markers have already been used 10,000 times in different areas and have so far secured and brought back assets of 150 million US dollars. They are also used in undercover missions by special forces, for example.
New York is a world metropolis with a correspondingly high population density and several metropolitan areas such as neighboring New Jersey or Long Island. With so many road users in dense urban areas, a chase can have the most serious consequences. In the USA, such “high-speed chases” are repeatedly the subject of heated debates with the judiciary, which is already under criticism. Most recently, as of this writing, a car chase in Baltimore had caused an entire building to collapse.
The New York Police Department wants to use two more technologies:
A four-legged robot dog from the company Boston Dynamics and a robot that is to be used in the agency’s information gathering. Because of the devices, the authority has been criticized by civil and data protection advocates. As Albert Fox Cahn, executive director of the surveillance-critical Surveillance Technology Oversight Project, explained: “The NYPD turns bad science fiction into horrific police work. New York deserves real security and not a poor man’s RoboCop.”
According to Carscoops, the legal aid organization Legal Aid Society is also criticizing Mayor Adams and the New York Police Department for putting the new technologies into service without giving citizens an opportunity to voice their concerns.
Speaking to NBC, a representative of the organization said:
“The City Council passed the POST Act two years ago to address this very issue, but the NYPD has yet again failed to consult the public before expanding surveillance technology.”
Those: carscoops.com
