The Massachusetts State Police thanked Roscoe for protecting his fellow officers from gunfire and laying down his life in the call of duty.
Roscoe wasn't a human being; he was a dog.
A robot dog, to be entity specific.
Massachusetts has been working with Boston Dynamics to add the Spot robot dogs to their arsenal since 2019.
"Right now, our primary interest is sending the robot into situations where you want to collect information in an environment where it's too dangerous to send a person, but not actually physically interacting with the space," vice president for business development Michael Perry said.
For all of its potential, Boston Dynamics doesn't want Spot weaponized. Perry said the lease agreements have a clause requiring the robot not be used in a way that would "physically harm or intimidate people."
And with no way to protect himself, Roscoe met his end.
A suspect was barricaded inside a Barnstable house, so the state police sent in three robots to find him.
The suspect kicked over the dogs a few times.
No doubt, like any of us, he couldn't resist reenacting the classic Boston Dynamics videos.
That's how they get you.
When it was clear that the old videos were true, and the dog wouldn't go down, the suspect shot it … multiple times.
Roscoe stayed down then.
The police deployed tear gas and apprehended the subject, but Roscoe didn't survive. The police credit the robot for saving lives by sacrificing its own.
"The incident provided a stark example of the benefits of mobile platforms capable of opening doors and ascending stairs in tactical missions involving armed suspects," state police said in a statement. "In addition to providing critically important room clearance and situational awareness capabilities, the insertion of Roscoe into the suspect residence prevented the need, at that stage of response, from inserting human operators, and may have prevented a police officer from being involved in an exchange of gunfire."
Boston Dynamics took back Roscoe's remains and is sending over a new robot dog to state police.
But at least, we all know that the bots can be killed ... for now.
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