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12th Jul 2019

Amazon Alexa calls the police as man allegedly assaults his girlfriend

Jade Hayden

Amazon Alexa called 911 as a man allegedly assaulted his girlfriend.

Eduardo Barros was threatening his girlfriend with a gun in a home in New Mexico when the virtual assistant phoned the police.

The device had heard Barros shout: “Did you call the sheriff?” and recognised the sentence as a voice command.

Police later arrived and took the woman, and her daughter who was also in the house, to safety.

The New York Post reports that Barros was housesitting when he accused his girlfriend of cheating on him over a text message she had received.

The arrest warrant details that he kicked the woman in the face and stomach multiple times saying that he was “going to kill her.”

The woman said that she feared for her life and thought that Barros was going to shoot her.

“Barros told her she was not going anywhere and he was going to kill her,” said the warrant.

“When 911 called her phone, Barros saw the caller ID and threw her to the floor (…)

“Barros told her he could not believe the cops had been called and he was not going back to prison and that she knew he was a felon.

“The victim stated she thought she was going to be killed or shot.”

The Bernalillo County Sheriff Department arrived on the scene soon after Alexa made the call. Sheriff Manuel Gonzales said that the device “has possibly helped save a life.”

“This amazing technology definitely helped save a mother and her child from a very violent situation,” he said.

The woman was injured but not taken to hospital. Her daughter was unharmed.