Description: Detectives in Spokane, Washington, reportedly created a purported AI-generated image as a joke depicting a real undercover officer holding an injured dachshund. A supervisor reportedly mistook it for an authentic photograph and the image was released to news media after correcting an earlier claim that the dog had died. The Spokesman-Review published a cropped version before the department disclosed that the scene was fabricated and began reviewing its verification procedures.
Entities
View all entitiesAlleged: Synthetic media generation technology developers and Synthetic image generation technology developers developed an AI system deployed by Spokane Police Department , Law enforcement and Synthetic media creators, which harmed Law enforcement , Epistemic integrity , General public , General public of Spokane, Washington , Journalistic integrity , The Spokesman-Review , Undercover law enforcement officers , Privacy and News organizations.
Alleged implicated AI systems: Synthetic media generation technology and Synthetic image generation technology
Incident Stats
Incident ID
1597
Report Count
1
Incident Date
2026-07-01
Editors
Daniel Atherton
Incident Reports
Reports Timeline
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Tragedy struck in Spokane in late June when a man allegedly killed a small dog in a domestic violence dispute.
Local police, issued a news release on July 1 highlighting the man's arrest.
Except the dog wasn't dead, only seriously injured. …
Variants
A "variant" is an AI incident similar to a known case—it has the same causes, harms, and AI system. Instead of listing it separately, we group it under the first reported incident. Unlike other incidents, variants do not need to have been reported outside the AIID. Learn more from the research paper.
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