Massachusetts: Robotic police dog shot and credited with averting bloodshed

This immediately reminded me of the 80s robot/scifi movie Runaway with Tom Selleck: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Runaway_(1984_American_film)

(Completely off-topic, I really like the explanation Selleck's character gives for why he's the expert: paraphrasing, "I was interested in robotics, read some stuff, and suddenly I was the one in the department who knew the most about this stuff")

More on-topic: Can robots be used to reduce the number of Swatting incidents? Like a quiet robot that peeks in the windows of a "suspect" house after a 911 call?