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.
Humanoid Robots Building Humanoid Robots
''Pardon me, Struthers,' he broke in suddenly... 'haven't you a section of the factory where only robot labor is employed?'' - Isaac Asimov (1940)
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Humanoid Robots Building Humanoid Robots
''Pardon me, Struthers,' he broke in suddenly... 'haven't you a section of the factory where only robot labor is employed?''
Stratospheric Solar Geoengineering From Harvard
'Pina2bo would have to operate full blast for many years to put as much SO2 into the stratosphere as its namesake had done in a few minutes.'