PSA: if you or someone nearby are being brutalized by a police Spot robot and can get a hand or something underneath, grab this handle and yank it forward. This releases the battery, instantly disabling the robot.
Keep your hands away from joints, Spot WILL crush your fingers.
If you are a bystander and can get BEHIND spot, don't hit the power button, hit the OTHER button - it physically disconnects the motors.
Spot can also be countered with booby traps easily.
If you're armed, shoot center-of-mass as normal. The lithium pack is huge and not armored
Spot is also purely optical, meaning paint, dust, a sheet or blanket, sticky tape, etc can severely impair it.
Original stereo cameras on the face. 360 camera, pan/tilt/zoom cam, and LIDAR rangefinders on accessory rails.
If you're feeling creative, and can prepare beforehand, Spot is literally just controlled with an Android tablet. In manual (as in, non-autonomous) mode, Spot is literally just communicating over Wifi.
A WiFi jammer based on an ESP2866 is $40 on Amazon, just sayin.
Ostensibly, Spot was never meant to see combat - at least the current iteration of it.
There are, of course, military versions in the works that probably get rid of most of these vulnerabilities but police departments are buying the civilian ones just cause they can.
Previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously.
So on the one hand, this is self-evidently terrible.
On the other hand... say what you will about robot murder-dogs, but they cost a mere $75,000 up front, and their annual maintenance costs are probably well below $10k. They don't have a 20-and-out pension, they don't refuse to work unless given at least 15 hours of OT a week, and they will not park their personal SUVs in handicap spaces, crosswalks and sidewalks.
Given that NYC has never yet encountered a problem for which our "social justice warrior" mayor does not think that the obvious solution is hiring 500-1000 more cops, I for one... welcome our new robot murder-dog overlords?
Just shoot the first one who gets agitated when you mention a tortoise.
You're forgetting that someone has to be holding that Android tablet. These murder dogs are in addition to the 500-1000 more cops.
Unlike the MSCHF's anti-Spot art project*, this I can get behind.
* Or free ad for bot's murder capabilities while Boston Dynamics completely distances itself from it publicly, depending on how you look at it.
I want my box of tamagotchis back and a feline version of this.
At least it's not heavy enough to crush my neck.
Yet.