Taylor initially fired shots from the building in Wytheville, but no one was injured. The drama came to an end when police ordered him to let the hostages go and come out with his hands up. Soon after, Taylor and three others left the post office.
A team of SWAT police sheltered behind vehicles as Taylor wheeled himself out and "surrendered" to a bomb-disposal robot.
State police Sergeant Michael Conroy said: "We're just grateful it ended peacefully. This is just the best outcome we could hope for."
Ah, the peaceful ending. Let's hope that this kind of ending endures as we develop more advanced robots - like the ED-209 from the 1987 movie Robocop, an autonomous robot unlike the bomb disposal bot shown above. As you can see in the video clip below, the enforcement droid is not quite bug-free.
Technovelgy (that's tech-novel-gee!)
is devoted to the creative science inventions and ideas of sf authors. Look for
the Invention Category that interests
you, the Glossary, the Invention
Timeline, or see what's New.
Poul Anderson's 'Brain Wave'
"Everybody and his dog, it seemed, wanted to live out in the country; transportation and communication were no longer isolating factors."
AI Note-Taking From Google Meet
'... the new typewriter that could be talked to, and which transposed the spoken sound into typed words.'