After a sniper killed five police officers in Dallas earlier this month, police made an unusual call - they attached a bomb to a remote-controlled robot and detonated it to kill the shooter.
The move was unprecedented. According to experts, no U.S. police department had ever used a robot as a bomb, although the tactic has been used by the military.
"Before Dallas, I never would have even thought of using a robot," said Sgt. Chris Johnson, a member of Charleston Police Department's SWAT team and a training division commander.
The Charleston Police Department has a robot that could be used in a similar way. The Kanawha County Sheriff's Office has three.
The robots, which normally are used to defuse bombs or to help with hostage situation negotiations, now have taken on a new dimension.
And while what happened in Dallas has prompted a national discussion about whether police should be able to use robots to kill people, neither local department has policies about whether they would use a similar tactic.
"I don't know that it has sparked a conversation yet," said Sgt. Brian Humphreys, the spokesman for the Kanawha County Sheriff's Office. "I would say that individual deputies have wondered themselves what they would do in the same circumstance."
Humphreys, Johnson and Charleston Police Chief Brent Webster all said that any method they used to kill someone depends largely on the circumstance.
"That decision would definitely be on the table," Webster said. "You'd have to be presented with something like that, if you have that much loss of life and people injured."
The robots aren't made to be bombs.
When the Kanawha County sheriff received a $264,000 grant for its most recent robot - a mammoth of a machine that has four cameras and a microphone, can lift objects and shoot cartridges at bombs - it was for dealing with explosives.
"You'll find a remote robot on pretty much every bomb squad in America," said Sgt. B.K. Carper, a member of the Kanawha County sheriff's bomb squad.
So far this year, the sheriff's office has received 12 calls about suspicious packages.
The large robot, which was bought in December, and the sheriff's two smaller robots are used to check areas for explosive devices, safely remove explosive devices and can be used to defuse bombs - basically, tasks to keep humans safe.
"If we don't have to send a bomb technician, then we use a robot," Carper said.
Since the robots have cameras, microphones and speakers, they also can be used in hostage situations or negotiations with a shooter.
That's why the Charleston police got its robot, a much smaller version of the Kanawha sheriff's that has only a microphone, camera and speaker.
After Charleston officers had to use the Sheriff's Office's robot in an active-shooter situation in the Sherwood Forest neighborhood in 2013, the department decided it wanted a robot of its own to handle similar incidents, Webster said.
So far, the Charleston robot has not been used in the field.
Officers with the Charleston Police Department and the Kanawha County Sheriff's Office said they do not have a protocol on what a situation would take to use one of the robots to kill someone.
"It would really be a last-resort thing," Webster said.
Humphreys, who was speaking with Sheriff John Rutherford in the room, said he was reluctant to give an answer on whether the county would or would not use a robot as a bomb.
"There's just so many unknowns in those quick seconds when a decision has to be made," he said.
Carper said there are a lot of possibilities in using a robot to defuse a situation.
"You're only limited by your imagination," he said.
Since Dallas, a national discussion has begun about whether it's ethical to use a robot to kill a suspect and if it sets a dangerous precedent for police departments.
The CPD and the Sheriff's Office said the Dallas SWAT team is held in high regard across the country.
When asked if using a robot is worrisome, both local departments compared it to using a police sniper to kill a suspect.
"Someone was responsible for what that robot did," Humphreys said. "A robot was the tool and, in this case, a weapon, but it was still acting as a tool in the hands of someone who is responsible for the use of force."
Previously, using a robot as an explosive device had been done only by the military, which has led to more questions about the militarization of police.
Humphreys said that just because a police department has military equipment, doesn't mean a department is militarized.
"I think most police officers don't see that as militarization," Humphreys said. "They view that as a tool that is needed to save the lives of people."
James Nolan, a former police officer and now a professor at West Virginia University who studies police, said militarization is about mindset, not equipment.
"If there's a need for military-type weapons to protect the people, and the community is on board with it, then it's different than using military weapons on people," Nolan said.
Nolan said his focus is on community policing and using relationships built in the community to help keep it safe.
"If a police officer is using deadly force," Nolan said, "is it something that they would use on their brother or their son?"
Humphreys also stressed the importance of community policing, and said it should take place long before an officer is in a life-or-death situation.
"I think the building of trust with the community takes place long before you have a circumstance where you need to use force," he said, "so that the trust is already gained, and applied when force is necessary."
Reach Daniel Desrochers at dan.desrochers@wvgazettemail.com, 304-348-4886 or reach @drdesrochers on Twitter.