Law enforcement reached a first on Friday morning when it used a bomb disposal robot to take out the Dallas shooter. In short, the Dallas police blew him up, remotely.

It was the first time such a device has been used to terminate a shooter. They’ve been used previously to diffuse bombs, or even take a pizza to a man in California who threatened suicide (it worked!), but never to take the life of a dangerous individual.

An explosive device was attached to the robot’s arm, and was then detonated when it was near the gunman. Dallas police chief David Brown told reporters, “We saw no other option but to use our bomb robot and place a device on its extension for it to detonate where the suspect was. Other options would have exposed our officers to great danger. The suspect is deceased as a result of detonating the bomb.”

The device, thought to be a MARCbot-IV military robot, has been used in Iraq for bomb disposal. It is thought that over 200 law enforcement agencies own these devices, purchased through a government program which allows them to buy surplus military equipment.