Waymo getaway a likely S.F. first

Burglar robs yoga studio in Marina, flees in robotaxi

Police say the robbery of a yoga studio in the Marina district was probably the first instance in San Francisco of a criminal using a self-driving vehicle as a getaway car.

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By Megan Cassidy Staff Writer

The getaway car was parked just outside the Marina yoga studio, idling in the January night air as the burglar made his move.<br>In under three minutes, the burglar was in and out of Hot 8 Yoga with an armload of activewear. He stuffed the loot in the car’s trunk, hopped inside and disappeared down the street, comfortably carried away by an autonomous Waymo vehicle.<br>The suspect’s escape turned an otherwise unremarkable break-in into a novel case for San Francisco police, who said it was probably the city’s first instance of a criminal fleeing the scene in a self-driving car.<br>Nearly six months since the burglary, police have still not made an arrest or publicly identified any suspect, despite the fact that Waymos are outfitted with multiple high-definition cameras and require users to make accounts with their credit card numbers.<br>“I would think it would be easier to solve in a Waymo,” the case’s detective, Sgt. Tim Faye, said in an interview.<br>It’s common for officers to seek video footage of a crime from any of the Waymos, Teslas and other high-tech vehicles that record their surroundings. That information can be crucial for identifying suspects or creating a reliable timeline of events.<br>At times, police will go so far as to obtain search warrants to tow the vehicle “witnesses” to ensure they don’t lose valuable video evidence.<br>In the Hot 8 Yoga burglary case, San Francisco police issued a search warrant that forced Waymo to turn over information on the account that ordered the ride and video footage from the white Jaguar that served as the getaway car, police records show.<br>Faye said that he couldn’t discuss certain details of the case, but that the Waymo user’s account information didn’t lead police to the suspect. In general, he said, it’s not unusual for a criminal to order a service with stolen information or a burner phone.<br>The video evidence didn’t help much either, Faye said. He said that the company had not retained interior footage of the car by the time the search warrant was filed in April and that it had kept the faces seen outside the car blurred for privacy reasons.<br>“It’s highly unusual in the first place that a Waymo is even used by a suspect,” Faye said. “It was disappointing that the internal video was not able to lead to the recognition of a suspect.”<br>Waymo does not publicly disclose how long it retains video footage. The company blurs faces and license plates in the public-facing images it uses in a database designed for research.<br>According to the company’s website, its latest-model Jaguars are outfitted with 29 cameras that give its cars a 360-degree view around the vehicle.<br>Representatives for Waymo declined to comment on the specific case, but said the company works to balance public safety and privacy while working with law enforcement.<br>A spokesperson for the company said it scrutinizes requests from law enforcement to ensure they are legally valid, and will push back or ask police to narrow its scope if needed in an effort to protect rider privacy. Waymo doesn’t use facial recognition or other biometric identification technologies to identify people, the company said.<br>There are few known examples of self-driving getaway cars anywhere in the country, in part because only a handful of large cities allow for autonomous taxi services. Last year in Los Angeles, a person allegedly robbed a grocery store before hopping in a Waymo.<br>Officers were able to chase down the vehicle after the suspect got inside, and the car pulled itself over after police turned on the car’s emergency lights, according to Los Angeles-area news outlets.<br>Farah Issa, studio manager of Hot 8 Yoga, showed the Chronicle a copy of the surveillance video from her phone, noting how the Waymo dropped off the suspect and waited for him to finish the burglary before taking off again.<br>The video, shot from inside the studio, shows the suspect wearing a light-colored hoodie and did not reveal his face.<br>“I thought it was quite funny,” Issa said. “He just stole a bunch of men’s shorts.”