"Bum Bot" Targets Atlanta Vagrants

Homeless Advocates "Appalled" By Bar Owner's Electronic Vigilante Invention

(AP)  Cars passing O'Terrill's pub screech to a halt at the sight of a 300-pound, waist-high robot marked "SECURITY" rolling through downtown long after dark.

The regulars hardly glance outside. They have seen bar owner Rufus Terrill's invention on patrol before - its bright red lights and even brighter spot light blazing, infrared video camera filming and water cannon at the ready in the spinning turret on top.

"You're trespassing. That's private property," Rufus Terrill scolds an older man through the robot's loudspeaker. The man is sitting at the edge of the driveway to a child care center down the street. "Go on."

The man's hands go up and he shuffles into the shadows. Almost immediately, a group of men behind him scatters too.

The Bum Bot's reputation, it seems, has preceded it.

The electronic vigilante - on the beat since September - has enraged neighborhood activists, who have threatened protests. Street people say it is intimidating. And homeless advocates question the intentions of its inventor, who uses the Bum Bot as a marketing tool and a political prop.

Terrill, a 57-year-old ex-Marine, asserts his motives are pure: He says more police now patrol the area at night, the park across the street feels safer and he has had no break-ins since the cube-shaped robot, which Terrill controls with a wireless remote, has roamed the area. To Henrik Christensen, director of Georgia Tech's Robotics and Intelligent Machines Center, the Bum Bot exploits the kind of anxiety that underlies the Terminator movies.

"We have a Hollywood picture that they're going to run amok, kill people and do bad things. This Bum Bot plays on that stereotype," Christensen says. "For the rest of us who want to use technology to assist people in their daily lives, it's an obstacle."

Just north of downtown Atlanta, Terrill's bar is near luxury apartment complexes, condo towers and Terrill's home. But vagrants gather at a nearby homeless shelter. Break-ins and robberies are common. And used needles litter the grounds of the child care center, where Terrill sits on the board.

"They're out here to get money for drugs, to get money from breaking into cars," he says. "These are bad guys."

Terrill bought the bar four years ago, plowing his profit from selling an apartment complex into the smoky dive. He named it O'Terrill's, gave it an Irish theme and decorated it with knickknacks he and his wife, Linda, had lying around.

At first, he walked around, indoors and out, with an assault rifle on his shoulder to scare away vagrants, but police told him to put away the gun. Then he used a spotlight. But the bar was still being vandalized, and guns were stuck in his face several times.

His wife suggested he patrol a safer way - using a robot.

An environmental engineer by day, Terrill gathered the makings of his vigilante for three months. A three-wheel scooter gives the Bum Bot mobility. A home-alarm loudspeaker attached to a walkie-talkie gives it a voice. Its head is a former home meat-smoker. The red lights are from a 1997 Chevrolet, and it's powered by four car batteries.

The bar now welcomes patrons with a sign that says "Home of the Bum Bot," and Terrill has asked a regular to design a T-shirt with its image. He says he may use it for a campaign for Atlanta mayor he plans to announce this summer.

"He'll be my chief of staff. He'll be parked in front of my office," says Terrill, who finished fifth out of five in Georgia's 2006 Democratic primary for lieutenant governor.

The robot's shell is made of steel and plywood, covered in rubber gym mats painted black and nicked by rocks, bricks and other objects people Terrill was rousting have thrown at it. Terrill programmed the Bum Bot's bulky remote himself.

"It's just like a video game," he says.

Some nights, he even transmits the robot's video view to the bar's 60-inch TV so people indoors can watch. By day, it stands at attention near a pool table. Terrill says the Bum Bot is promoting public safety.

"There are children in our neighborhood that use that day care center," he says. "People are coming on private property, they're defecating, they're throwing crack needles, sometimes they're throwing crack rocks."

[gorph001]

Good idea!...They should have a "Bum Bot" for Modesto, Ca, to move all the bums that literaly lay around, & hang-out in & around downtown businesses, & homes etc. it''d be a kick to see that thing blast some crack-heads that are threatening people!!!!!.

[ratherlies94]

I smell a new reality TV show.

If someone is smart, imagine what they could do with a remote control helicopter with a camera.

[libh8er]

He should add tazers and a cattle prod. When the "activists" show up, turn him loose. There are more than enough shelters in Atlanta.....bums don''t need to be hanging out around businesses.

[tireslinger]

I too, think this is a grand idea! Being able to keep even a portion of a junkie''s ***, away from kids, just makes it a better one. If these vagrants or junkies, were on the complainers properties or near their children, you can bet your !@$ that they''d be responding and want them gone! Some will do it by verbal means, some by raising a weapon, some by calling the police. This gentlman does it too, just by a unique means...give him a break!

[rf35]

I love this idea. If the police are unable or unwilling to do their job and protect private property, then the owner has the right and responsibility to protect his assets. And kudos for getting the druggies away from the child care center.

[summarex]

Protests?

I would tell these activists to grow some balls and kick this thug''s teeth in.

That would be a lot more effective than protests!

[brianbwb-2009]

"sometimes they''re throwing crack rocks."

This is almost certainly a lie, a crack junkie would never drop the object of the addiction, they would rather swallow it. Since it doesn''t dissolve, it will not OD them, but they also don''t lose it.

Mr. Terrill is most probably exaggerating, using the Bush tactic of exaggerated fear mongering to justify possibly illegal activities.

[brianbwb-2009]

Posted by Danahart3

Right, as if we would visit a site with the name "virus" as part of its name, take your spam elsewhere.

Reported.

[brianbwb-2009]

Posted by michaelt302

Makes no difference where the ACLU people live, and since they are a buffer against unbridled fascism, we need them.

Many "poor" are that way, not because of laziness, but also are the victims of many of societies shortcomings, racism, corruption, "trickle down" that is not trickling down, unemployment, lack of assistance for mentally disabled, handicapped, PTSD victims, etc. Should you wake up to a day when you find your own rights violated, you will be more than willing to avail yourself of their services.

Business cannot exist in a vacuum, they are comprised of people also. If you can only say to the less fortunate, "go away, I don''t want to see you" you are engaged in a futile effort, and your business is of no benefit to society anyway.

If Terrill is chasing people off his own property, it is legal, but if he is chasing them off public areas, and other people''s property without the owners'' written permission, then he is violating several laws, and should be appropriately sanctioned.

[perm3800]

I read foreign papers online - homelessness is NOT an "American" problem, it is global. And timeless. They appear in plays from ancient Greece. Jesus said they''d always exist, that there was no solution. For every person who is out there because they are too poor to find housing, there are three who are mentally ill, two of those self medicating with either drugs or alcohol. SF has found that giving them housing means most of them just use it for storage and they still hang out on the streets and beg. They cleaned up one city park only to have the problem move to another. All this man is accomplishing is keeping them off his property and that of his neighbors - something they have the right to do. Until we find a ''cure'' for PTSD, Bi-polar disorder, schizophrenia and chronic depression that doesn''t just substitute one miserable reality for another, we won''t get the homeless off the streets.

[wlmrtpatriot]

What happens if the bum bot mistakes one of US and targets us? This could be used just because somebody doesn''t like somebody...and it will be. Oh Big Brother where art thou?

[susanhelit]

Good job! Leaving needles and such all over a child care center - he''s doing good work trying to stop it. No, homeless people don''t have a right to use and mess up private property.

[newsterl]

uses the Bum Bot as a marketing tool and a political prop."

Not a hot idea to associate your BUSINESS with anything political or religious cause it can backfire big. Maybe someday too this jerk will lose his business and be homeless and see what its like.


"I''m appalled by the whole idea. It''s a sham and a shame," says Beaty. "Rufus is using this for his 15 minutes."

"He''s moving the problem elsewhere," Christensen says. "And that works for him, but it''s really not solving anything."

Whats the difference between the bot and a team of cops rousing vagrants off park benches and sidewalks and making them move on- to another area??

[bgwinnett]

typo R2-D2. Duh!!

[bgwinnett]

R2-R2 or what.

[jackie0428]

This is the coolest thing I have ever heard of. Only way to improve on this is to strap a 200V cattle prod to one arm and let it "persuade" these bums to move along. I hate homeless bums. Urinating and defecating everywhere, throwing their trash all over the place, begging aggressively right in my face as I walk down the streets. Heck, I''d have them all shipped to Death Valley if it was legal. I say we put another 10,000 of these on the streets. Get rid of the bums!!!

[michellem99-2009]

oh Dear
First cameras
Now a bloody homeless bot.
The man sat on his bum.
America has homeless because everything is high.
Seattle is full of tramps/bums/hobos/ why greed.

[beehive21-2009]

Sounds like a good target,shoot it,throw it, burn it, Big Brother is coming.