A Massachusetts State Police four-legged robot dog used to assist police at the scene of an ongoing standoff involving an armed barricaded subject earlier this month was shot multiple times, state police say. Members of the state police bomb squad were called to a home at 24 St. Francis Circle in Barnstable on March 6 for a standoff with a man who barricaded himself inside the residence.The robot, nicknamed Roscoe by police, was used to search the home, and had cleared the top two floors, according to police. When Roscoe was sent to the home's basement, the male suspect suddenly appeared from a bedroom armed with a rifle, police say. Police said the suspect attempted to knock Roscoe over and was eventually successful in doing so. However, police say the robot dog has a self-righting function, which allowed it to get back up and follow behind the suspect who ran up the home's stairs. "When the suspect realized, with apparent surprise, that Roscoe was behind him on the stairs, he again knocked the robot over and then raised his rifle in Roscoe’s direction. The robot suddenly lost communications," state police said in a news release. Police said troopers would later discover that Roscoe had been shot three times by the suspect and had been rendered inoperable.According to police, after shooting Roscoe, the suspect then shot at a second robot outside the home's sliding door, striking an above-ground pool in the backyard instead. From the archives: July 2022: State police show off new robot dogPolice said SWAT team members then introduced tear gas into the home, and the suspect was later taken into custody by Barnstable police."The incident provided a stark example of the benefits of mobile platforms capable of opening doors and ascending stairs in tactical missions involving armed suspects," state police wrote in the news release. "In addition to providing critically important room clearance and situational awareness capabilities, the insertion of Roscoe into the suspect residence prevented the need, at that stage of response, from inserting human operators, and may have prevented a police officer from being involved in an exchange of gunfire."Boston Dynamics, the manufacturer behind the development of Roscoe, has expressed an interest in keeping the robot dog for research. Roscoe is one of two robot dogs operated by the state police bomb squad.