The ED-209 offscreen killing of a kid just because he has a knife despite the fact that it wouldn't do anything is subtle evidence to support the logic behind the Dreyfuss act, that being a robot doesn't possess the morality and empathy necessary to effectively judge people as a human does. That, and it shows that while the ED-209 isn't the complete joke it was in the original Robocop movies (the original was so pathetic it couldn't go down a flight of stairs without falling), neither is it completely effective either.
Alternately: the ED-209 wasn't viewing the kid as a threat to itself, it did see it as a threat to nearby civilians. A steel knife may not be able to leave a dent on a robot, but it can easily go through human flesh.
There were also high-priority civilians nearby marked by red tags. That might have overridden some of the possible restrictions.
All of which reinforces the idea that a machine can't distinguish the nuances involved, while a human could have just talked to the kid.
The reason they keep Murphy's right hand. It seems pointless to save such a small scrap of Murphy compared to the rest of his new body. But consider his weapons. The gun he keeps for his right hand is a high tech stun pistol. It has functions from incapacitating to killing its target. It has control over if someone lives or dies, and it's in Murphy's human hand. Omnicorp knows how to subtly market things.
It's also been pointed out that the right is the one you shake with, representing the merging of man and machine. Sellars played a part in this. In one of the deleted scenes, he asks point-blank if the right hand can be salvaged, because his father always said you can learn a lot about a man from his handshake. Again, marketing, but with lots of symbolic overtones.
Following with that idea, this add another layer of brilliance when Murphy meets Rick Mattox. After Mattox says his condescending remarks and basically threats him like a machine, Murphy offers his left hand for a hand shake. Murphy didn't that just as a rude gesture, if Mattox wouldn't treat him like a person then he won't greet him with his human hand.
The human hand may have been what let Alex to overcome the software restrictions in the final standoff. Alex lost his machine hand in a previous battle, further emphasizing the hand taking center stage.
Often overlooked, but when Murphy begins investigating his own murder, the Chief becomes agitated and says he's breaking protocol. Most will see this as the Chief attempting to cover her involvement with the criminals, this is in fact a real protocol. A police officer is prohibited from investigating a crime that he has been involved in, such as an officer involved shooting, or if they are the victim. This creates a major conflict of interest that could influence the officer into making the wrong decisions, not to mention their recollection of events might be wrong due to trauma.
Iran is occupied by a drone army that can potentially gun down civilians for comparatively trite reasons, like the kid with the knife. The rest of the world is okay with this it seems. Did Iran do something bad enough to warrant this, or did the world just not care?
Or has OmniCorp's combat drone development turned America into such a superpower that no one is willing to stand against them with anything less than a full nuclear strike?
Honestly, the biggest Fridge Horror is this is not really an exaggeration as RL Drone strikes kill civilians (let alone a Loophole Abuse enemy combatant like the kid) all the time on faulty data.
RoboCop's body can be completely shut down, leaving him paralyzed, a mutilated man trapped in a robotic shell. He's completely helpless. That's already pretty bad, but keep in mind this version of RoboCop still has his real face and lungs. If RoboCop had landed on his front instead of back when they shut him down in the rice fields, he would have drowned in the dirty irrigation water.
