--- title: "Ohio Police Fire Robocop for Helping Make Zero Arrests and Failing to Issue a Single Ticket" description: "Te Dublin Police Department in Ohio pulled the plug on its crimefighting robocop after it didn't help prevent or punish any crimes." date: "2026-06-17" modified: "2026-06-17" authors: - name: "Frank Landymore" job_title: "Contributing Writer" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/flandymore" url: "https://futurism.com/robots-and-machines/ohio-police-fire-robocop-knightscope" categories: - "Robotics" - "Robots and Machines" --- # Ohio Police Fire Robocop for Helping Make Zero Arrests and Failing to Issue a Single Ticket ![Illustration featuring the tall white autonomous police robot named "DubBot."]() *Illustration by Tag Hartman-Simkins / Futurism. Source: City of Dublin / Shutterstock* Shout out to arguably the world's most ethical — and laziest — robot cop. After less than a year on the job, it helped make zero arrests and issued zero tickets. Its operators, unsurprisingly, have run out of patience. The [*Columbus Dispatch* reports]() that the Dublin Police Department retired its mechanical crimefighter, nicknamed "DubBot," last month, after the Ohio city euphemistically determined that it wasn't meeting its operational needs, according to a spokesperson. The oversized-traffic-cone-if-it-swallowed-a-giant-egg shaped machine is a K5 autonomous security robot built by Knightscope, a California-based firm. At a little over five feet in height and weighing some 400 pounds, it has no limbs to speak of and rolls around on two wheels, leading to comparisons to the Daleks from the "Doctor Who" franchise. It's not exactly "RoboCop," but it's supposed to help prevent crime by watching everything with its 360-degree video cameras, and providing citizens an emergency call button. For this skullduggery-stopping potential, the city paid $67,548, which is in the rough ballpark as what your average cop probably makes annually. It was put on an easy beat, tasked with patrolling a local parking garage in July 2025. Still, it didn't do a whole lot: on top of not leading to any arrests, criminal cases, or tickets, the robot also never spotted any incidents requiring a human police response, according to the department spokesperson. The city was pretty close to blowing even more money on its clumsy crimefighter, too. It originally planned to pay Knightscope $238,440 to deploy two robots in Dublin for two years, but the second robot was never rolled out. (The police department actually spent $128,080 on the single robot, but it's receiving a $60,533 reimbursement from Knightscope.) This isn't the first time the Knightscope robot has gotten the axe. In fact, the company's bots seem to mostly make headlines for sucking at their jobs and wasting tax payer money. Disgraced New York City mayor Eric Adams [signed a deal to deploy the K5 bots in the city's subway system]() in 2023, but they were [retired months later]() after proving to be so useless that they required human cops to constantly chaperone them. Last month, another Knightscope robot, this one tasked with patrolling the San Antonio International Airport, [was dropped because of an onslaught of technical difficulties](), like not being able to move in a straight line or provide employees with a working live video and audio feed. *Do you know anything about what's going on at Knightscope? Send us a tip: [tips@futurism.com](). We can keep you anonymous.* **More on Knightscope:** *[Failing Robot Cop Company Knightscope Now Publishing Bizarre AI Slop Fan Fiction About Its Robots Solving Absurd Crimes]()* ## Author At Futurism, my work has often centered on bringing a sense of clarity and insight to complex topics ranging from the regulation of emerging technologies to the esoteric ideologies of Silicon Valley executives, while striving not to lose the poetic sense of awe inspired by often-obscure fields like astrophysics and quantum computing. I broke the story of CNET using AI to produce articles that turned out to be riddled with factual errors and plagiarism — a dam-breaking inflection point, as I've reported, that's inspired copycats and endless discourse while beguiling stakeholders ranging from tech giants to purveyors of spam around the web. My work at Futurism has been cited by publications including CBS News, the Los Angeles Times, Vice, Gizmodo, Engadget, the Verge, and Vanity Fair. I grew up in locales ranging from India to China, and now live in the exotic suburbs of Virginia. In my free time, I'm an avid reader of weird sci-fi literature, an aficionado of East Asian cinema, and, regrettably, a relapsed gamer. Allegedly, I’m working on a debut novel, currently untitled. ### Author social links [Bluesky]()