A RoboCop Statue for Detroit?

Feb. 17, 2011 -- What's the first thing that comes to mind at the mention of Detroit? The auto industry, no doubt. The music of Motown, perhaps.

How about RoboCop?

What started as a joke, casually tossed off in a tweet, has turned into a topic of heated debate in the city where it could end up having a lasting physical impact: a giant, solid metal, $50,000 permanent sculpture of RoboCop -- the titular character from the 1987 movie set in dystopian Detroit -- plunked down on the street.

On Feb. 7, less than two weeks ago, Twitter user @MT sent an ironic tweet addressed to Detroit mayor Dave Bing: "Philadelphia has a statue of Rocky & Robocop would kick Rocky's butt. He's a GREAT ambassador for Detroit."

It should have ended there. But when the mayor replied via Twitter that "There are not any plans to erect a statue of Robocop," an Internet campaign was born.

"I think it hit the sweet spot of interest and curiosity of the mayor not only being on Twitter, but responding to a tweet about RoboCop," Jerry Paffendorf, one of the statue's backers, told ABC News. "It led to a lot of smiles and turned into a lot of interest in how that could actually happen."

Detroiter John Leonard started a Facebook group called Build a statue of RoboCop in Detroit and teamed up with friends like Paffendorf, who works at the local nonprofit Imagination Station, to explore their options.

Working with sculptor Casey V. Westbrook, the organizers determined that building a full-scale, solid metal, permanent sculpture would cost $50,000. Undaunted, they launched a campaign at the hip crowd-sourced funding platform KickStarter a week ago with a goal of raising the money by March 26.