A 41-year-old man in Silicon Valley is facing charges after police say he assaulted an armless, egg-shaped security robot.
Police say Jason Sylvain assaulted the robot (identified as K-5) while it was patrolling the parking lot near Terra Bella and Linda Vista Avenue, according to ABC7 News.
The 300-pound sentry’s only defensive measures are to spin and occasionally whistle, ABC 7 reports, so it’s hard to understand why someone would want to knock it down.
A Mountain View resident tells ABC 7 Sylvain’s drunken, robot rage is pathetic.
Meet K-5 —the droid taken down by an alleged drunk man last week. Don't worry, he's back on patrol 🙂 details @abc7newsbayarea at 11 pic.twitter.com/0qthDHONQq
— Tiffany Wilson (@TWilsonTV) April 25, 2017
“I think this is a pretty pathetic incident because it shows how spineless the drunk guys in Silicon Valley really are because they attack a victim who doesn’t even have any arms,” Mountain View resident Eamonn Callon said.
Knightscope, the company that makes the security robot, said K-5 suffered only scratches in last week’s incident and is now back on the job. The company told ABC 7 that, “it’s a testament to the technology that police caught the aggressor and booked in him jail.”
K-5 is designed to alert security guards to disturbances and detect known shoplifters with its camera, which evidently captured the assault. The bots are rented out to companies for about $7 an hour.
Robots like K-5 are no strangers to the news. According to SF Gate, a similar security bot made headlines in ’16 when it ran over it ran over a 16-month toddler, hurting his leg and foot.
SF Gate reports Sylvain is accused of prowling and public intoxication.
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