The Honolulu Police Department spent $ 150,045 in CARES Act funding to buy Spot the robot dog from Boston Dynamics , the human race ’s sickest dogbot famed for backflips , gamesof fetch , and also string up out withlaw enforcement . As the Honolulu City Beatreported last hebdomad , some feel that the expense was a spot excessive .
“ Toys , toy , toy , ” one anonymous officer told the composition . “ Everything we could buy , we would purchase . ”
Two department officials can be get word defending the leverage in a video of a HonoluluCity Council meetingin January . In a presentation , Major Mike Lambert and Acting Lieutenant Joseph O’Neal explained that Spot is intend for the POST program , “ Provisional Outdoor Screening and Triage adeptness , ” anencampmentof tents to shelter people experiencing homelessness who are ineffective to quarantine in existing facilities . As the Star Advertiser hasreported , K of people are live on on the street in Honolulu .
Photo: Josh Reynolds (AP)
“ We ’ve been wait for this instant to justify ourselves on the big jam that ’s been going around , so thank you so much , ” Major Mike Lambert told the City Council .
They unfold the display with acknowledgment of another reference book to “ spoilt insistency ” involving a pricey fleet of vehicular toys such as ATVs that the police department also purchased around the time it received CARES funding . As Hawaii News Nowreportedin April , the department spent $ 16.5 million after it have the pandemic relief attention . ( At the hearing , the Honolulu Police Department reported that the money was gone . ) A Spot model for developer can be purchased forabout halfof what the Honolulu Police Department paid for theirs .
L and O’Neal went on to excuse that the golem protect police officer work onsite by reduce contact with covid - positive and diagnostic mass . “ To put a cost rag on a potential pic to the officers and their families … $ 150,000 is … I would n’t put that cost on anybody , ” O’Neal said . “ Not one of the dispossessed people , not a societal worker , and not one of the officer . ” They did n’t expand on how the automaton benefits unhoused people more than a less expensive contactless option or other health creature comforts .
They confusingly cite the need for “ substructure ” ( technology ) , and proceedings afterward , O’Neal mentioned that “ this is an outdoor environment with no infrastructure . ” It ’s undecipherable why the Spot money could n’t be spent constructing traditional infrastructure such as shelter .
It ’s also unclear why they require the golem at all , given that one of the major perk mentioned was that it carry a temperature screening gimmick that can be used from several feet aside and logically might be change as a handheld gizmo .
“ Spot carries a photographic camera that is so advanced it can rake someone from 8 foot away , ” O’Neal boasted . “ Now this is not a CAT scan of general temperature . This camera … scans a three - pixel sphere in the corner of your eye . So the most accurate consistence temperature you could peradventure get in that website and probably almost anywhere — this is the same camera that ’s been used at the Pentagon . ” This purportedly helps solve the problem of “ truth trouble ” in measuring body temperature from heat exposure . And Spot can disinfect area with UVCs and nebuliser , they added .
In a slide , the department expose an estimate of staffing and equipment price which supposedly warrant touch devote itself off in around 90 days . This let in two switching with two officers to cover performance and sic up for alternative equipment , which , they claim , would be about $ 1,800 day by day let in extra time .
Another was supply a communication and telehealth portal which also could be installed as an iPad with advanced two - way of life communication capabilities that can also be apply and go remotely by humans . Why the speech equipment for a screen and a temperature CAT scan needs to be a risky male child with unparalleled lightness and dog leg rather than wheel ? The City Council did n’t examine the matter .
or else , Councilmember Augusto E. Tulba inquired about likely non - covid - relate uses , such as crack down on a fireworks job .
“ You could send this engineering into a neighborhood to give you a visual linear perspective of what ’s go on in a neighbourhood or detect explosions in the air , that ’s not beyond reason , ” O’Neal answer . He pause and bestow : “ Or capture people lighting them . get people light the fireworks . You could . ”
The New York City Police Departmentretired their own $ 94,000 Spotafter activists made dissonance over a viral video of the robot policing street in the Bronx . “ Shout out to everyone who fought against community advocate who demanded these resources go to investments like school direction instead , ” Alexandria Ocasio - Corteztweetedin February . “ Now robotic surveillance ground droning are being deployed for testing on low - income communities of color with under - resourced school . ”
stateless encampments certainly fall in the “ under - resourced ” category .
Neither Boston Dynamics nor the Honolulu Police Department , which was contacted by Gizmodo at 3:30am Hawaii - Aleutian Standard Time , was immediately uncommitted for comment . We will update this post when we hear back .
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