Taser-maker pauses plan to arm drones in US schools after ethics board outcry

Nine members of ethics board resign from panel in protest

Taser developer Axon said on Sunday it was pausing its work to build drones armed with electric stunning weapons to combat mass shootings in schools.

The firm walked back on its plan after its technology advisers panned the idea as a dangerous fantasy, with nine ethics board members resigning from the 12-member panel.

“In light of feedback, we are pausing work on this project and refocusing to further engage with key constituencies to fully explore the best path forward,” chief executive Rick Smith said in a statement.

Referring to the resignations of some members from the ethics committee, he said it was unfortunate that some of them “have chosen to withdraw from directly engaging on these issues before we heard or had a chance to address their technical questions”.

Axon will continue to “seek diverse perspectives to challenge our thinking and help guide other technology options that we should be considering”, he added.

The publicly-traded company, which sells Tasers and police body cameras, announced the idea last week, days after the 24 May shooting in Uvalde, Texas, which killed 19 children and two teachers.

At that time, Mr Smith had said that he felt compelled to make the idea public after the mass school shooting as he was “catastrophically disappointed” by the police response.

Local law enforcement has faced increasing scrutiny over its response to the attack on 24 May as officers in Uvalde took more than an hour to kill the shooter who massacred 21 people, a lapse of time that will likely be a key part of a Justice Department probe.

“This is an idea that should get into the public’s consciousness while our minds are open to it and I felt if I wait another six months, the world is going to change and people are going to forget this pain and we’re going to see a shift in sentiments where people are going to focus a lot more on what could go wrong, rather than the pain of this problem we need to solve,” he had said.

The company had first floated the idea of a new police drone product last year to its artificial intelligence ethics board, which voted 8-4 against it, Wael Abd-Almageed, who was one of the nine members who left the group, said.

The group of experts in technology, policing and privacy had raised concerns about weaponising drones in over-policed communities of color.

“What we have right now is just dangerous and irresponsible, and it’s not very well thought of and it will have negative societal consequences,” he said.

Chair Barry Friedman was also set to resign, said Mr Abd-Almageed.

“This particular idea is crackpot,” Mr Friedman, a New York University law professor, had argued last week.

He said it was a “dangerous and fantastical idea” that went far beyond the proposal for a Taser-equipped police drone that board members – some of them former or current police officials – had been debating in recent months.

“We begged the company not to do it,” he said of the company’s announcement, as he called it “unnecessary and shameful”.

Additional reporting by agencies