A self-driving Waymo taxi was filmed obstructing emergency response efforts at the site of a mass shooting that occurred at a bustling bar in downtown Austin early Sunday morning.
Matthew Turnage had ordered an Uber after leaving a club around 2 a.m. He found his taxi “stuck” at the intersection of West 6th Street and Nueces Avenue, just two minutes from where a shooter had killed two people and injured 14 others at a backyard beer garden in Buford. KXAN reported on this incident.
Turnage shared, “We left the club around 2 a.m. and were walking home. We managed to get a Waymo car from Uber. When we saw it, it came to pick us up, but it got stuck in the middle of the road and blocked emergency vehicles for several minutes.” The video footage captures the Waymo taxi, operating on its own, idling in the middle of the street while an ambulance waited to navigate past it.
The Waymo vehicle eventually moved slowly and turned into what seemed to be a parking lot, but by then, the ambulance had already retreated and sought an alternate route, as shown in the footage.
Emergency responders acted swiftly, with medical personnel arriving at the scene within 57 seconds after the first call came in at 1:59 a.m., according to officials.
In Austin, riders can now utilize driverless Waymo vehicles for Uber trips across 133 square miles, an initiative that began in January.
Driverless cars in several major U.S. cities have faced scrutiny following multiple incidents, including one where a vehicle struck a child near an elementary school in Santa Monica and nearly collided with a family in Los Angeles.
Just before 2 a.m., police arrived at the Backyard Beer Garden in Buford in response to reports of someone firing a gun. The shooter, identified as Ndiaga Diagne, 53, from Senegal, was killed by police shortly after the attack. The FBI is now investigating the event as a potential act of terrorism.
FBI Special Agent Alex Dolan remarked, “There were signs on the subject and his vehicle that suggested a possible connection to terrorism.”
