In short
Waymo self-driving vehicles had been vandalized and set ablaze throughout a protest in opposition to ICE raids in downtown Los Angeles.
Waymo quickly pulled its fleet from the world and is cooperating with authorities.
A number of Waymo autonomous taxis had been vandalized and set on fireplace Sunday throughout a protest in opposition to the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids in Los Angeles and the Trump administration’s deployment of Nationwide Guard into the area.
What the automobiles had been doing there—who despatched them, and why—is to this point unknown. Viral movies posted to social media present demonstrators climbing atop the self-driving taxis, smashing home windows, and spray-painting the perimeters of the taxis. No less than 5 automobiles had been severely broken and set on fireplace because the protest escalated on Sunday night, in keeping with a report by KTLA.
As the electrical automobiles burned, officers warned that the chemical compounds within the vehicles’ batteries might launch poisonous fumes.
Whereas Waymo appeared to reduce its operations within the Los Angeles space on the Waymo app, the corporate mentioned it’s being cautious with additional deployments.
“Waymo continues to be working in Los Angeles,” a spokesperson informed Decrypt. “Nonetheless, out of an abundance of warning, given the latest exercise, we eliminated automobiles from Downtown Los Angeles and won’t be serving that particular space of LA in the meanwhile.” The spokesperson famous that Waymo didn’t look like the goal of the assaults.
Waymo mentioned it was working with native authorities within the aftermath of the incident. The Los Angeles Police Division didn’t reply to Decrypt’s request for remark.
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