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Republican mayoral candidate John Catsimatidis believes "a robot" could soon end the debate over the police department's controversial stop-and-frisk tactic, he said last night.

"The stop-and-frisk law is going to go away by itself," Mr. Catsimatidis, a billionaire business executive, said at the New York Observer-sponsored event. "There's new technology for the 21st century. It's going to be a robot or a handgun that identifies if somebody is carrying a concealed weapon. And that's going to happen, so the stop-and-frisk law over the next year or two will go away by itself."

Mr. Catsimatidis may be referring to a machine the N.Y.P.D. acquired in January that reads terahertz—the natural energy emitted by people and inanimate objects—potentially revealing concealed weapons from a distance. It's not clear when such a device might be actually implemented, however.

Nevertheless, even before the robots or terahertz handguns become commonplace, Mr. Catsimatidis said the stop-and-frisk policy should generally continue in the name of public safety.

"The stop-and-frisk law needs some modification, but we can't let it go away," he argued. "New York City's the safest city in the world, Commissioner Kelly has made it one of the safest cities in the word and we cannot give the streets back."