cross-posted from: https://rss.ponder.cat/post/202379
The robotaxi company Waymo has suspended service in some parts of Los Angeles after some of its vehicles were summoned and then vandalized by protesters angry with ongoing raids by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Five of Waymo’s autonomous Jaguar I-Pace electric vehicles were summoned downtown to the site of anti-ICE protests, at which point they were vandalized with slashed tires and spray-painted messages. Three were set on fire.
The Los Angeles Police Department warned people to avoid the area due to risks from toxic gases given off by burning EVs. And Waymo told Ars that it is “in touch with law enforcement” regarding the matter.
The protesters in Los Angeles were outraged after ICE, using brutal tactics, began detaining people in raids across the city. Thousands of Angelenos took to the streets over the weekend to confront the masked federal enforcers and, in some cases, forced them away.
From Ars Technica - All content via this RSS feed
I can’t help but doubt that it was actually protesters who did this. LAPD and ICE would have been tripping over themselves at the opportunity to use deadly force against someone committing a felony, and the FBI put someone on the most wanted list over dinging a police vehicle.
Protesters know that there are surveillance cameras everywhere. Why would they burn a couple of Waymos and do literally nothing about the readily visible cameras literally everywhere around them?
On the other hand, both ICE and LAPD need the imagery of a city on fire to sell their necessity.
watch plainrock124 make content out of this
Waymo told Ars that it will only provide footage to law enforcement when presented with a warrant, and then only information directly related to that warrant.
I wonder if that’s actually the truth
What does Waymo have to do with ICE? Huh?
the answer may surprise you
in-vehicle surveillance
See, sometimes I look at protests, and I just question… what exactly is the purpose of this? Nah, fr, how does this affect ICE? I’m not going to call the perpetrators terrorists or evil or anything, but why exactly? Does Waymo support Trump or something? Just seems a bit random, besides showing anger.
When trying to fathom a complex plot, look at who benefits.
Who benefits from senseless property destruction where nothing of value is stolen and the target poses no threat?
Well it also could be because waymo is owned by Alphabet (Google’s parent company) and the side against ICE is also going to be generally against megacorps that are actively trying to sprint towards technofacism. But honestly I doubt that much thought went in to it. People are angry for a million different reasons in this country right now, and at a protest like this that is spontaneous (as opposed to organized/planned) that anger is bound to manifest in ways that aren’t always the most productive to the cause. That’s just human nature imo. Emotions aren’t always rational. And sure, it’s definitely possible this was an opportunist just looking for an excuse to be destructive, or even planted fed agitators like others have said, but if you ask me it’s just as likely it’s just some pissed off people who are just saying to themselves “fuck it, the government wants to fuck our shit up? Well then i guess we can fuck shit up too.”
It may not have been protestors. The FBI is known to send in people to protests to cause trouble so law enforcement has an excuse to escalate.
Waymo records everything, and has been used to arrest people after police requested data.
Ohhhh… Shit, mb, makes sense.
This is so sad. Alexa, play Despacito.
I just assume the government is behind almost all of the escalation including this kind of shit. It’s absolutely a part of their playbook whether this particular incident was them or not. They can’t be trusted and they fight dirty from a position of power.
Always have been.JPEG
They need appearance of violence to justify their monopoly on violence.
