Man Charged With Slashing Tires on 17 Waymo Self-Driving Cars

<p><strong>San Francisco&comma; CA –<&sol;strong> San Francisco District Attorney Brooke Jenkins announced that Ronaile Joshua Burton &lpar;36&rpar; of Castro Valley&comma; has been charged in connection with seventeen vandalism incidents in the &lpar;Tenderloin&rpar;&period; Mr&period; Burton was arraigned on July 10&comma; 2024&comma; and pleaded not guilty to all charges&period; Mr&period; Burton is charged with 17 counts of vandalism&comma; in each instance&comma; the damage being more than &dollar;400 &lpar;PC 594&lpar;b&rpar;&lpar;1&rpar;&rpar;&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>&OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;I would like to thank the San Francisco Police Department for their careful investigation in this case&comma;” said<strong> District Attorney Brooke Jenkins<&sol;strong>&period; &OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;The destruction of other people’s property will not go unaddressed in San Francisco&period; People who vandalize property must be held accountable for their actions&period;”<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>According to court records Mr&period; Burton is alleged to have approached and vandalized Waymo autonomous vehicles on 17 different occasions between June 24&comma; 2024&comma; and June 26&comma; 2024&period; Each incident was captured on cameras installed in the Waymo vehicles&period; Prosecutors allege that these incidents are connected to another case &lpar;court number 24011877&rpar; in which Mr&period; Burton is alleged to have approached a three-car caravan of Waymo vehicles and used a knife to stab the tires on the Waymo vehicle&period; Each incident in that case was also captured on cameras installed in the vehicles&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Prosecutors moved to have Mr&period; Burton detained pending trial because of the public safety risk he poses&period; The court granted the motion to detain without prejudice and set no bail&period; The preliminary hearing in this matter has been scheduled for July 23&comma; 2024&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;