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NYPD’s security robot has been pulled from its Times Square subway station post just months after Eric Adams described it as ‘part of the fabric’ of the future. New York Police Department unveiled its fleet of ‘Big Brother’ robocops that would patrol the city’s streets and subways in April.
In September, Mayor Eric Adams announced another robot would be joining the department – an almost 400-pound robot to roam the Times Square – 42nd Street subway station and patrol the mezzanine level of the station. The AI-driven security robots are no longer being deployed in New York City’s transit system, officials confirmed on Sunday.
The end of robot security at the Big Apple’s most busy subway station comes after Adams called the tech part of the system’s future. Adams pledged to bring more technology to the nation’s largest police department as part of his promise to focus on combatting crime in the city. Crime has risen in virtually every category in New York City during recent years, statistics show, despite Adams repeatedly claiming his campaign to resolve the issue has been successful.
‘This is below minimum wage,’ Adams said when he introduced the robot. ‘No bathroom breaks. No meal breaks. This is a good investment.’ NYPD leased the ‘fully autonomous’ robot for six months for $12,500 and paid for it using forfeiture funds, officials reported last year. The K5 device, which is decorated with NYPD colors and complete with an unblinking camera lens, was part of this strategy.
The robot, a product of California-based autonomous security robots developer Knightscope, has four cameras it can use to shoot video and moves at 3mph. ‘It’s very important that the public knows what this robot is, what its capabilities are,’ NYPD Chief of Transit Michael Kemper said when the device was unveiled in September.
The robot is able to capture video footage, but not audio, and features a button that allows members of the public to contact a member of the police department to report an emergency or ask questions. In 2015, the security robot knocked a 16-month-old to the ground at a California mall and ran over one of his feet.
Knightscope, the company that manufactures the machine, said that the robot was trying to veer to the left to avoid the child when the accident happened. In another incident, the K5 model rolled itself fatally into a fountain in Washington, D.C. Members of the public are glad to see the back of the robot now that the K5’s stint in the Times Square station is up, at least for now.
Nick Linnear, who has worked as an MTA employee for the past five years, told The New York Post that he didn’t think the robots were working. ‘I don’t think it’s a good idea,’ he told The Post. But Linnear hadn’t seen the robots at work for himself. ‘We need police—not robots,’ he said.
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