Pricey Honolulu police robot dog is out of service

In the throes of the Covid-19 pandemic, flush with federal relief money, the Honolulu Police Department made national headlines for spending $150,000 on a robot dog.

A four-legged machine that can walk and even dance, Spot was ostensibly purchased to take people’s temperatures at a city-run homeless encampment, an explanation that attracted so much criticism that HPD leaders were hauled before the Honolulu City Council in 2021.

There, they defended the six-figure purchase by saying Spot would actually be useful for years to come.

“The ideas you can come up with would be endless as far as its future potential use beyond the pandemic,” then-Lt. Mike Lambert told the council.

Four years later, Spot is playing dead.

“The department still has the robotic dog but is not deploying it at this time,” HPD spokesperson Michelle Yu said via email.

In fact, Spot hasn’t been used since 2021, she said, and the department apparently doesn’t know what to do with it.

“In-house programmers are currently reviewing its software capabilities and assessing how it can be used to assist with possible future tasks, such as searches and surveillance,” Yu said.

The robot was purchased with part of Honolulu’s $386 million in federal CARES Act money, of which $40 million was granted to HPD by then-mayor Kirk Caldwell. Besides Spot, HPD spent millions on new trucks, ATVs and overtime used to cite people in closed public parks. Meanwhile, residents were struggling to access financial assistance through a city program meant to help them pay for rent and childcare.

“For us to invest that into a robot instead of people, it’s not only disconcerting from a fiduciary point of view, it’s concerning from a humanity point of view,” said Camron Hurt, executive director of the government accountability nonprofit Common Cause Hawaii.

“We should’ve been putting our people first.”

Wookie Kim, legal director at American Civil Liberties Union Hawaiʻi, said the sidelining of Spot validates public concerns from years ago that it was a waste of money. HPD’s approach to buying it was “entirely backwards,” he said.

“It very clearly was a toy,” he said. “You should have a problem in mind and figure out the tools or strategies you need to address that problem, not buy a tool and figure out what problems to solve with it.”

Lambert, now director of the Hawaii Department of Law Enforcement, did not respond to a message left with his office on Friday afternoon.

In a statement, Assistant Chief Darren Chun of HPD’s Special Field Operations Bureau said Spot did serve a purpose.

In 2021, the robot was used more than 100 times for “contactless temperature checks, client interviews and telemedicine appointments via tablet” at the city’s Provisional Outdoor Screening and Triage program. The so-called POST program offered unsheltered homeless people a legal place to camp overnight with police oversight and the promise of referrals to services.

“It’s important to remember that there were a lot of unknowns at the outset of the COVID pandemic,” he said. “Social distancing and contact tracing were in place, and the public was being advised to severely limit person-to-person contact to reduce the spread of the virus.”

Before Spot was purchased, officers and site workers had extended face-to-face contact with clients, some of whom were Covid-positive, he said. After each actual or potential exposure, he said staff had to be tested and quarantined for two weeks or until cleared by a doctor.

“Spot reduced the risk of contracting and spreading COVID at the site for clients, officers and workers,” Chun said.

The ACLU, however, found the use of robots to help with homeless individuals’ healthcare to be “dehumanizing,” Kim said.

Spot was transferred to HPD’s Major Events Division in late 2021, and the IT division took it over in May 2024, Yu said.

Following complaints about HPD’s CARES Act spending, the U.S. Treasury Office of the Inspector General launched a review. In 2021, the office determined the department’s purchases, including the robot dog, were legally permissible.

Spot can be equipped with various add-ons, including cameras, sensors, thermal imaging tools and hazardous substance detectors. Police departments around the country have acquired the robot dogs to help with SWAT missions and other tactical challenges.

Hurt said he sees possible uses for Spot in patrolling city parks at night or monitoring Kakaʻako for “smash and grabs.”

“If they are capable, why have they not been used for that?” Hurt asked.

However, community members and academics across the country have raised concerns about potential misuse of Spot’s surveillance capabilities and the possibility it could be weaponized. Kim said the risk is too great that this powerful technology could be used to harm people.

“It’s like the hammer that sees everything as a nail,” he said. “They should get rid of it, instead of what it sounds like, trying to find some use for it and potentially increase the odds that it violates people’s rights.”

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This story was originally published by Honolulu Civil Beat and distributed through a partnership with The Associated Press.