US Police Uses Robot-Dog to Thwart Attack

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The Massachusetts State Police responded to an incident using a robodog called SPOT. After the police department was alerted to an incident involving a hostile and armed suspect who attempted to fire rounds at officers, the officers responded by deploying the two robots known as PacBot and SPOT, both four-legged dog-like robots.

These two robots were used as part of an attempt to locate the suspect, who in turn barricaded himself inside the residence, as was reported by MSPNews. According to Cybernews, the SPOT robot can be controlled remotely, thus allowing officers to stay a safe distance away while gathering whatever necessary information they need about the suspect and the situation. SPOT can walk up flights of stairs, get back up and in position if knocked down, and is surprisingly resilient in case it is being attacked.

This specific SPOT robot, lovingly referred to as Roscoe, was shot three times, lost communication, and sustained damage that rendered it inoperable. It was then taken back to its manufacturing company for repairs, where it reportedly wants to keep it for research purposes.

The company that created SPOT is called Boston Dynamics, a robotics company creating “highly mobile robots” that are intended to manage industrial tasks. They report that this was the first instance in which one of the robots had been shot (as reported by The Guardian).

Furthermore, the Massachusetts State Police posted on X (formerly known as Twitter) that one of their “robot dogs did his job spectacularly: while clearing a house occupied by an armed barricaded man, Roscoe took three rounds fired by the suspect. Roscoe’s capabilities prevented a human officer from being in the line of fire.”

MSPNews further stated that the police force and fire department in Massachusetts are committed to using advanced technology to resolve hostile situations as it removes the need for human contact in potentially dangerous situations.