Well LOL!
That's as good a way to deal with it as a counter-sniper I guess.
That's also a Chief with stones... the press will compare him with... Daly, I think it was? who had a bomb dropped on a building and burned blocks of structures.
He said they had no choice. Apparently the negotiations weren’t going to end well.
That was Wilson Goode, black mayor of Philly.
This is SOP for destroying or detonating a terrorist or perp placed bomb that is too difficult or dangerous to disarm. The remotely detonated explosive device is immediately available to the police bomb squad, as is the robot used to place it. The explosive device is not intended to be used against humans, so it appears the police adapted to the situation of an entrenched sniper who would not surrender.
It appears as there was no collateral (excluding political) to this use of an "explosive device", unlike the MOVE city block.