The Montgomery County (Texas) Sheriff’s Office had a big day planned. After becoming the first department in the country with its own aerial drone ($300,000!), they were ready for a nice photo op. And then the drone crashed into a SWAT team.

Idiots.



  1. bobbo, we think with words, and flower with ideas says:

    Yep, boys and their toys while real needs go unmet all while saddling our kiddies with debt that can’t be repaid.

    Speaking of threats from everywhere, heard for the first time the notion that one fear regarding Iran and its Nuke Program is that North Korea has been sharing info with them for quite a while. NK needs money and Iran is willing to spend it.

    Balance that with true notion that the world won’t be safe from Iranian Nukes unless Iran decides itself to give up their program. How to do that?

    I’m pissed so much of our money is wasted on programs that do us more harm than good. Going into bankruptcy to do it really doesn’t make any sense at all. Texas???? I wonder who earmarked these funds?

    Same as it always is.

    • Animby says:

      Very much in agreement, Bobbo.]
      As for the earmarks? Who needs earmarks? Betcha a buck to a dollar it was a grant from DHS. I suppose I should read the linked to article but, since I’d already read one news article about it…

      You know, one that thing could be that, like the average citizen, the drone perceived the SWAT team as a threat and attacked it!

      • bobbo, the pragmatic existential evangelical anti-theist says:

        I fast skimmed the article. Operator Error. Evidently the pilot flew the drone behind a building and it lost radio contact/control, or that chinese circuit board overheated and failed. Given the drone “should be” programmed to return to base on various failures, and it was being flown close to the launch team, not surprising it would crash near, if not on them. Co-incidence almost by design.

        Sad.

        We accept 40K deaths per year to motor cars for the benefit of cars.

        We accept 20K deaths per year to guns for the benefit of ……. for the benefit of……. well, ok, for the benefit of the gun manufacturers and Emergency Rooms everywhere.

        But we don’t accept the death of 3000 people once from a terror attack.

        HOOMANS are NO GOOD at risk assessment and response==or the BS and pandering that takes advantage of same.

        Downright dysfunctional we are.

  2. scandihoovian says:

    Who needs shotguns when we have straw toothed technocrats running these things. They’ll fall from the sky like that bee problem nobody seems to talk about anymore.

  3. AdmFubar says:

    well this is telling, it was design to identify and take out criminals.
    it works flawlessly!

  4. mharry860 says:

    That’s not a drone, it’s a toy helicopter. Government bureaucrats are too stupid to know the difference.

  5. kmfix says:

    What happens when people discover what frequencies these operate on and decide to take their privacy into their own hands?

    • jasontheodd says:

      You don’t need to know the frequency, just jam them all. I remember how frustrating it was as a kid when my radio controlled plane went haywire because the “Larry Rice Crusaders” at the end of the park dialed up their private radio rig. (Life in the bible belt…) You can make it more difficult to jam a high end device, but the laws of physics make radio waves fundamentally jam-able

      • Animby says:

        In Texas? I’m betting the next one will be shot down before it gets it’s radio jammed.

      • CrankyGeeksFan says:

        A major problem frequency was around CB radio channel 23. Long time ago…

        • jpfitz says:

          Did you have one of those long white fiberglass antennas attached to your car back in the day?

          I’m embarrassed to say I had one on a 72′ VW micro bus’s rear bumper.

  6. Glenn E. says:

    Yep, only in Texas, is anything “unmanned” unable to work as well as it works everywhere else. They seem to have a subconscious prejudice against anything that takes a job away from a highly trained human, and his very expensive conveyance. In this case, a helicopter pilot and his whirlybird. So just to prove a point, that manned air surveillance is superior, they crash the cheaper substitute.

    Texas being one of the few major aerospace states. Manned aerospace, that is. Not robots, satellites, or drones. I’m sure a lot more careers are made, building and maintaining manned craft, than unmanned drones, in that state. California as well. But they haven’t crashed anything yet. They just make the “bad robot” movies there, to prove the point. Every cybernetic device that replaces a human pilot, always turns evil, in the motion pictures.

    Just once I’d like to see Hollywood have the guts to make a film where the robot saves the day, and doesn’t turn evil. Fat chance.

    • Where’s RoboCop when you need him?

    • Mr Diesel says:

      iRobot was the movie.

        • Glenn E. says:

          Good call. RoboCop was part human, remember. So it had human judgment and maybe a soul, going for it. While Ed209 was his all machine replacement that went snafu. And was then defeated by RoboCop. Hollywood, sticking to the pre-approved script as usual.

      • Glenn E. says:

        Actually Robin Williams did do “Millennium Man”, now that I think of it. But it wasn’t exactly an action thriller. The robot man became more human, as time passed. And his owner encouraged his development. It’s a very touching drama. But no heroics were involved. At least the other domestic robots didn’t turn on their masters. It wasn’t Westworld or anything.

  7. Peppeddu says:

    Was it flying near Adam’s house? you know, when he was home and the gun next to his window?

  8. JimD, Boston, MA says:

    Kids with SLING-SHOTS will make sport of these !!!

  9. RS says:

    I am surprised the police dept’s aren’t purchasing howitzers and mortars.

  10. DigiJoltMan says:

    Wait till they try to fit guns to them and sit in the station eating donuts…..

  11. David says:

    Well, here’s the beginning of being spied on, and it’s always the good that suffer for it. But if the people of that Co. don’t speak up, they get what they deserve. In our Co. if they tried that (using Drones) the people would come together on a Saturday night to the Sheriff’s house with moonpies RC Cola’s and a new rope. Monday we would elect a new Sheriff.


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