In San Francisco’s Chinatown, a crowd gathered around a Waymo driverless taxi, painted graffiti on its body and set it ablaze, a scene captured in recent reporting from the San Francisco Standard. The episode unfolded on Jackson Street on a Saturday evening. The unmanned Jaguar taxi was not transporting passengers at the moment of the attack; the previous rider had already exited, and the vehicle was en route to the next customer when trouble began to mount.
As the robotaxi stood stalled, the surrounding crowd grew more agitated. The car was soon blocked by bystanders, and the surrounding mood shifted from curiosity to hostility. The group used pencils to cover the vehicle, and one young man shattered the windows with a skateboard. Fireworks were then thrown into the cabin, triggering a blaze that consumed the car and left only the scorched frame behind. The destruction was complete, leaving a charred husk where a taxi once stood.
Details about the motive behind the attack were not disclosed in the reporting. Authorities indicated that the police would pursue those responsible, noting that the incident was documented through photographs and videos circulated on social media. The wider context included the Lunar New Year celebrations in San Francisco’s Chinatown, which had drawn attention in the days surrounding the event and may have influenced public responses in the neighborhood, according to local coverage from the San Francisco Standard.
A separate, unrelated incident was later reported from Krasnoyarsk, where a man allegedly burnt a neighbor’s car after a dispute involving his girlfriend’s visit. This incident appeared in the broader news cycle but was not connected to the San Francisco event, underscoring how diverse urban environments can experience abrupt acts of violence involving vehicles in recent times.