Police claim the droid’s deployment earlier this month prevented injuries to people officers after a machine dog took bullets during a tense, equipped wall situation on Cape Cod.
In a statement, Massachusetts State Police spokesman Dave Procopio said,” The incident provided a striking instance of the benefits of smart programs capable of opening windows and ascending steps in military missions involving trained suspects.”
” In addition to providing critically important room clearance and situational awareness capabilities, the insertion of ( the robot ) 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”, Procopio continued.
In a wall condition where the person of interest was armed with a shotgun, authorities released a robot created and manufactured by Boston Dynamics into a Francis Circle mansion in Barnstable on March 6.
According to Massachusetts State Police, the Spot system was released in the room, where it cleared a bedroom before being surprised by the man with the weapon who came out of a room, and was so named by its manufacturer because of its mechanical dog-like appearance owing to its size and four-legged design.
The man knocked Roscoe over before ascending the stairs. Roscoe was able to remotely control the robot, right it, and then follow the target up the stairs.
” When the suspect realized, with apparent surprise, that Roscoe was behind him on the stairs, he again knocked the robot over and then raised his rifle in Roscoe’s direction”, the MSP wrote in a statement. ” The robot suddenly lost communications”.
Later, it would be discovered that Roscoe had taken three shots to disable him.
The man turned his attention to the two PacBot 510 robots that the police had also unveiled. The robots produced by Virginia- based Teledyne FLIR LLC is a rubber- tracked robot with a central arm that the company describes as specializing in “bomb disposal, surveillance and reconnaissance” as well as detecting chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear threats and handling hazardous materials.
According to the MSP, police were able to release tear gas into the home because the man was distracted by those two robots. The man would soon surrender.
Trooper John Ragosa, the MSP bomb squadman who controlled Roscoe, took him to Boston Dynamics to have the damage assessed. The company, the MSP says, has expressed interest in keeping the shot- up unit for study. The MSP will be replacing their Spot unit, according to Coppicio.
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