LAPD used a portion of its staggering $1.8bn budget on a $278,000 dog this year and is putting the investment to use. It's not just any dog, though, but a robot one from Boston Dynamics. The kind you've likely seen getting knocked over in the company's marketing videos.

In August, LA Taco reports, the department used the dog for the first time in a confrontation with a cornered man in a stairwell armed with a lighter and an airsoft gun, and earlier this November set it on an armed man sleeping on a bus. Someone called in, said that there was an armed man on board, and LAPD was on the case. The dog—a faceless, headless, metal and plastic contraption ostensibly designed for de-escalation—calmed down the tense 3am "standoff" between the sleeping man and the other passengers on board.

The gun retrieved from the scene was a BB gun.