Waymo Robotaxis have become a weapon for police control. And in Los Angeles they are burning them

What started as a protest against raids Anti -immigration in the United States resulted in bell battles in the streets of Los Angeles and the mobilization of 2,000 national guard and 700 Marines. This morning. Donald Trump has confirmed that he will double the forces of this first body and, before the doubts about your legality, has confirmed that 4,000 troops will be deployed of the National Guard.

For four days, the tension has increased to the point of confronting against the police, attacking various shops and burn cars.

And in the middle of this whole fight, there is a clear affected by protests: Waymo.

Waymo, objective of protests

No t -shirt, with the face covered and waving a flag of Mexico uploaded to the roof of a completely vandalized Waymo car. It is undoubtedly one of the most representative images of the protests that are being carried out in the United States.

“Sometimes an image says everything to say”, Aldo Butazzoni points out in its publicationconservative journalist who is following the disturbances in the street.

Getting to the Waymo vehicle roof is no accident. The company that has active a robotaxis service in the city is being one of the companies that are receiving more attacks, seeing how protesters completely destroy their cars.

Last June 8, A photograph went viral. He showed at least three vehicles on fire. The company raised the figure to five cars and confirmed that it temporarily paused the service before the protests. In Los Angeles Times They assured that the protesters came to launch shared scooters of the Lime company against vehicles to access the interior. In his photographs a person is also seen trying to break one of the front windows with a skate table.

But why this virulent attack on the company?

Beyond the obvious damage to urban furniture with the burning of these cars and the intention of making difficulties to the police work, everything indicates that the company is being hard attacked by the protesters for deeper reasons.

Since Waymo launched, attacks on the company have been multiple. In July last year, a person was accused of clicking the wheels to 17 Waymo vehicles. But it has not been the only vandalism, the previous months caught fire and destroyed the company’s cars in Los Angeles and San Franciscowhere they also operate.

“Waymo lacks humanity. It is expensive and politicians, who have encouraged it, use it as an excuse to stop financing public transport. I hope Waymo collapses.

With these words, Elise Joshi, well -known climatic activist, his position against Waymo attacks these days in these days explained in these days A publication in X.

The Waymo service has always been surrounded by controversy. Although they are already approaching the 800,000 monthly travelersthe company has had to deal with the opposition of those who see in the service an attack against public transport, one more tool of the great technology of earning money without using people and a problem in day -to -day mobility.

In recent years we have seen, for example, how Erobotaxis services caused various mobility problems. Some of little importance, such as almost 600 fines that accumulated Waymo cars for parking where they should not in a single year. But also more serious, like Cruise’s car than parked on top of a woman hit or the vehicles that complicated the work of firefighters.

Those derived from the impact of these robotaxis companies are very wide. To the point that there are those who have questioned If they are the cause of more housing problems in cities like San Francisco.

Constant surveillance

There is another great derivative of why Waymo cars are constantly attacked. Beyond the social or political positioning before the service, when someone vandates a Waymo car ensures that it cannot be used by the police.

They point out in Time that police forces are using Waymo cameras recurrently in their research. Each Waymo I-Pace Jaguar has 29 cameras to control everything that occurs around. That makes them a powerful asset for the police.

In 404 average They published last April that the Los Angeles Police Department This video uploaded to YouTube To ask for citizen collaboration when locating the driver of a vehicle that would have hit a person in an accident that had nothing to do with the performance of the Robotaxi.

In that article, Waymo said that he studied in detail all the requests of the police and that he did not deliver images indiscriminately but in Bloomberg They already pointed out in 2023 that the procedure for helping these vehicles was increasingly common.

In fact, the media indicated that not only Waymo has been appealed by the police when collecting information for an alleged crime. Order forces too They would have asked for images To Tesla, according to the economic environment, since their cameras are recording at all times what happens around them. In fact, Elon Musk’s company has been accused of record their own owners in their homes without them knowing it.

“We have known for a long time that they are essentially wheel surveillance cameras,” said Chris Gilliard, a merit member of the Carnegie Council for ethics in international affairs to Bloomberg. “We are supposed to be able to make our daily lives without being persecuted unless we are suspected of a crime, and every bit of this technology eliminates that capacity,” he concluded.

Photo | Paul Goyette and Waymo

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