The Dallas Police Department has earned high praise over the years for its progressive approach to law enforcement.

It stresses community policing and outreach; it employs a widely diversified force of officers working in an ethnically and racially diverse city of more than 1.3 million residents; it has a tactical squad that is second to none.

This past Thursday night, the police department deployed a special weapon to eliminate the shooter who had gunned down 12 officers, killing five of them at the end of a peaceful march through downtown Dallas.

It was a bomb-toting robot device that it armed with a Claymore mine and then detonated near the shooter, who died in the blast.

Some have questioned whether the use of the device was wise. Police Chief David Brown stands firmly behind his decision, as do many other law enforcement officials around the country.

Chief Brown made the right call.

The shooter posed an imminent threat to other officers, not to mention to civilians caught in the hail of gunfire. Dallas PD negotiators sought to talk the gunman into surrendering. They sought a peaceful end to the event. He was having none of it.

The device worked perfectly.

Now, having expressed support for the decision to use the robotic bomb, I want to caution its future use by other departments that possess that kind of lethal technology.

I truly hope it becomes a case of last-resort, rather than first-resort deployment.

Police occasionally have to take extraordinary means to quell the kind of violence that erupted in Dallas this past week.

This technology, though, should be used only when circumstances warrant it … such as the events that unfolded Thursday night in downtown Dallas.