In November, the San Francisco SPCA deployed a 5-foot-tall, 400-pound robot to patrol its campus. The SPCA, a large complex nestled in the northeast corner of the city's Mission neighborhood, has long dealt with vandalism, break-ins, and discarded needles in its surrounding parking lots. Fearing for the safety of its staff, the SPCA figured the robot could work as a deterrent, a sort of deputy for its human security team. The robot came from a Silicon Valley startup called Knightscope, whose growing family of security machines work as slower, more disciplinarian versions of self-driving cars. SPCA used their K5 robot, which is good for outdoor use.

Like so many classic Western anti-heroes before him, he rolled (literally) into town with a singular goal in mind: cleaning up the streets, which had become a gritty hotbed of harassment, vandalism, break-ins and grift. The only difference was that he was a slow-moving, 400-pound robot with a penchant for snapping hundreds of photos a minute without people's permission, and this was San Francisco's Mission District in 2017. Quite a bit, as it turns out. In the last month, his first on the job, "K-9″ -- a 5-foot-tall, 3-foot-wide K5 Autonomous Data Machine that can be rented for $6 an hour from Silicon Valley start-up Knightscope -- was battered with barbecue sauce, allegedly smeared with feces, covered by a tarp and nearly toppled by an attacker. As if those incidents weren't bad enough, K-9 was also accused of discriminating against homeless people who had taken up refuge on the sidewalks he was assigned to patrol. It was those troubling allegations, which went viral this week, that sparked public outrage and prompted K-9's employers -- the San Francisco chapter of the animal rescue group SPCA -- to pull the plug on their newly minted robot security pilot program. "Effective immediately, the San Francisco SPCA has suspended its security robot pilot program," Jennifer Scarlett, the organization's president, wrote in a statement emailed to the Washington Post on Thursday. "We piloted the robot program in an effort to improve the security around our campus and to create a safe atmosphere for staff, volunteers, clients and animals.

A security company has apologized for a "freakish accident" after its crime-fighting robot hit a 16-month-old boy on the head and ran over him at a shopping mall in Palo Alto. Knightscope Inc. said attempts to reach the family haven't been successful, but the company invited them to its headquarters in Mountain View, Calif., to prevent similar incidents from happening. "Our first thoughts are for the family, and we are thankful that there were no serious injuries," said William Santana Li, the company's chairman and chief executive officer. "Our primary mission is to serve the public's overall safety, and we take any circumstances that would compromise that mission very seriously." The company said the child ran toward the robot, which veered to avoid him as it was patrolling, and the toddler then ran backward and directly into the robot.

A security, crime-fighting robot allegedly hit a 16-month boy on the head and ran over him at a shopping mall in Palo Alto. Tiffany Teng told KGO-TV that she and her family were visiting the Stanford Shopping Center on Thursday when the robot, also known as an autonomous data machine, suddenly hit her son's head and caused him to fall to the ground. While still on the ground, the robot ran over his right foot, which became swollen, she told the news station. "He was crying like crazy and he never cries. He seldom cries," Teng told KGO-TV, pointing out her son also suffered a scrape. A security guard told her the same thing apparently happened to another child.