Google Home Breaks Up Domestic Dispute By Calling the Police

[brooklynite]

Gizmodo

According to ABC News, officers were called to a home outside Albuquerque, New Mexico this week when a Google Home called 911 and the operator heard a confrontation in the background. Police say that Eduardo Barros was house-sitting at the residence with his girlfriend and their daughter. Barros allegedly pulled a gun on his girlfriend when they got into an argument and asked her: “Did you call the sheriffs?” Google Home apparently heard “call the sheriffs,” and proceeded to call the sheriffs.

A SWAT team arrived at the home and after negotiating for hours, they were able to take Barros into custody. Police tell ABC News that the man’s girlfriend was injured but did not need to visit a hospital. The couple’s daughter was safe and unharmed.

“The unexpected use of this new technology to contact emergency services has possibly helped save a life,” Bernalillo County Sheriff Manuel Gonzales III said in a statement.

Barros was charged with possession of a firearm or destructive device by a felon, aggravated battery against a household member, aggravated assault against a household member and false imprisonment.

[Warpy]

1. I just hope the cops don't return his damned gun

There are too many belligerent assholes in this town who have guns.

[Nevernose]

3. One of the times they arrested my ex for domestic battery

They didn't actually arrest her, just impounded her gun for thirty days. I was grateful for what I could get, but since they declined to arrest her (no one but me and our children actually SAW her threatening to murder her family) it was probably illegal.

I guess I'm actually THANKFUL we were poor at the time. If we'd been middle class, at the very least she could have afforded lawyers and such.

The next couple of times she was arrested for domestic violence (once against me, once again for attacking her boyfriend after me), she just lied and said she didn't own any guns.

Finally, she got arrested in a way she couldn't talk her way out of. She grew angry at the custody arrangement she'd agreed to and helped write, and the neighbors called the cops and filmed as she smashed the windows to my apartment and punched me in the face. I even denied getting hit in the face (partly out of male pride, partly because I can take a punch, partly out of loyalty, and mostly from a well-ingrained fear of cooperating with the authorities), but the police noticed all of the blood dried in/on my nose and I didn't. They drove to her work to arrest her, she did the classes and got her gun back, and then I had the custody arrangement modified so that she had to sell the gun and not own any more.

There has got to be a better, more thorough way of doing background checks. I get due process, but maybe there should be character references or something.

[Warpy]

4. Yeah, which is why most of us think a conviction for domestic violence

should mean you have to cope with your life without owning a gun.

[Nevernose]

5. I put my only gun in the trash after Sandy Hook

I'd inherited a small arsenal from various relatives over the course of a few years. After Sandy Hook, I threw the only useable one in the trash. All were functional, but only one was something that one would ever use (for target practice or "self-defense" or whatever). I didn't even do that. I took my (fairly) valuable, inherited 9mm, dismantled it, and threw away one piece on every garbage day. I should have done it sooner, just in case.

The rest are of historical value, are stored in an inherited gun safe that I don't know the combination to, and my will is very clear as to which museum they are to be donated to.

It makes gun nuts sad and say it's pointless, but it doesn't seem pointless at all, at least not to me.

To paraphrase Lynyrd Skynyrd: "They ain't good for nothing except for putting people six feet in a hole."

[Warren DeMontague]

2. Siri heard Bob Marley confess to shooting the sheriff

However, He did not shoot the deputy.

[Stuart G]

6. Excuse me...What is ...."Google Home" ?....I don't know...nt

[Egnever]

9. it's a smart speaker for your home

https://madeby.google.com/home/

They are great for the kitchen counter. It is a voice activated assistant. Will do many things including playing music, and apparently calling the cops

[Bonx]

11. Yes, perfect for the kitchen where my hands are rarely available

Haven't called the cops yet tho

[csziggy]

10. It's one of these new home automation things

Both Google and Amazon have them. They stay on all the time and you can ask them stuff. I think it's kind of creepy but they seem to be getting popular.

I am not sure if there is even a name for the category of device.

[kentuck]

7. At the link, there is a "correction" on the story.

[GhostofJFK]

8. I have mixed thoughts here

In this case it may very well have saved a life. So that is a big plus.

On the other hand when couples argue (I argue with my wife plenty) and the cops are called, it is mandatory that one party is arrested and goes to jail. Potentially a bad argument could lead to someone getting a criminal record, losing a job, and ruining that life needlessly.

Very odd times we live in with technology these days