DeepfakeMedium
Spokane, Washington, Police Reportedly Circulated Purported AI-Generated Image as Authentic Photo of Injured Dog
- Occurred
- Jul 1, 2026
- Published
- Jul 20, 2026
- Source
- AI Incident Database
Summary
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.
Developers
- Synthetic media generation technology developers
- Synthetic image generation technology developers
Deployers
- Spokane Police Department
- Law enforcement
- Synthetic media creators
Harmed parties
- Epistemic integrity
- General public
- General public of Spokane, Washington
- Journalistic integrity
- The Spokesman-Review
- Undercover law enforcement officers
- Law enforcement
- Privacy
- News organizations
Classification
Category confidence: 90%
Severity confidence: 85%
Rationale: Police used AI-generated image deceptively, causing misinformation and requiring correction.
Classifier: Qwen/Qwen3.5-35B-A3B-FP8