The Los Angeles Public Safety Committee approved the donation of a robotic “unmanned ground vehicle” — colloquially known as a “robot dog” — to the Los Angeles Police Department’s Metropolitan Division on January 24.
The private donation from the Los Angeles Police Foundation, a non-profit organization, was approved 4-1, and must now gain approval from the city council itself.
In their initial grant request on October 27, 2022, the LAPD stated that this technology will increase “officer safety while at the same time, reducing the likelihood of a violent encounter with armed suspects.” The grant request also stated that fewer violent encounters between police and the community will increase trust between them.
However, critics have since raised concerns about the potentially harmful impact of these machines in marginalized communities.
“These [machines] were already rejected in NYC because they were used to aggressively police working-class communities of color,’’ said newly elected councilmember Hugo Soto-Martinez in a Twitter thread on Jan. 24. “We can’t allow this dystopian machine in L.A.”
A singular dog was briefly used in New York City in 2021, prompting concerns from residents about the increased surveillance threat the robot posed. The New York Police Department then terminated its test program lease of their robot in April 2021 following backlash from residents about disproportionate police presence in low-income communities.
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The robot dog is a creation of Boston Dynamics, a manufacturing company that calls their invention “Spot.” The company lists a variety of industries Spot can work in, including manufacturing, construction and entertainment, but its most notable use is in public safety.
“Spot is used in public safety applications to keep people out of harm’s way and help first responders assess hazardous situations,” said a Boston Dynamics spokesperson in an emailed statement. The statement went on to highlight several examples of police and fire department use of Spot, including rescue operations, suspicious package investigation and bomb threat detection.
This project, which is valued at nearly $300,000, was not budgeted for by the city council but gifted by the Los Angeles Police Foundation — the largest source of private financial support for the LAPD. Since the foundation is a private organization, there is no information about the guidelines LAPD would follow if the project is approved.
“I think that new equipment, tools, [and] weapons like this should raise question marks about how the agency, in this instance, the LAPD, will put them to use,” Perez added. “And I think that means we should be vigilant and members of the community should be vigilant to ensure that the use of this purchase is aligned with the values of the city of Los Angeles and what we want to see from our public safety agencies.”
Some community voices are anxious regarding the use of this technology and are calling against the Public Safety Committee’s decision to vote on these dogs.
“I think we understand the Public Safety Committee’s role isn’t to keep us safe,” said Matyos Kidane, a community organizer for the Stop LAPD Spying Coalition. “If you listened to the Public Safety Committee meeting where they talked about the robot dogs, they only allowed for 40 callers to speak, there were more cued up. 39 of those 40 are opposed to robot dogs.”
“These are animals that we saw used to terrorize…Black people that resisted their own oppression,” said Kidane in reference to the historical significance of K-9 units. K-9 units of police dogs hold ties to Jim Crow-era sheriffs who would use dogs as primary forms of crowd control. In 1991, the American Civil Liberties Union and the NAACP filed a state court suit against the LAPD for using K-9 dogs with excessive force when deemed unnecessary. Spot technology could reignite concerns of racial bias depending on their placement.
“I would have serious questions about the cost and the benefits here. Whether this is just ‘toys for boys’ or whether they’re actually gonna be, not only useful but useful in proportion to their cost,” said Jay Stanley, a senior policy analyst at the ACLU. “Because there’s a lot of other crying needs that many of our communities have and we don’t want funds diverted from improving communities to super high-tech devices.”
Members of the community feel that there are better places the local government can focus its attention.
“People are saying divest from policing, invest in our communities and permanent supportive housing and harm reduction care,” said Kidane. “We don’t want these robot dogs. It’s incredibly harmful. We don’t want any oversight around them…we just don’t need them at all.”
“We know that any time surveillance exists, this notion of observing somebody, ascribing them of criminality and suspicion, it’s always going to be Black and indigenous people,” said Kidane.
Although the Public Safety Committee has approved this project, the L.A. City Council vote will determine whether the robot dog is let out of its cage.