Waymo pulls over robotaxi after detecting riders were carrying assault rifle

Two minors were arrested last week in San Francisco after a Waymo allegedly detected they were carrying a gun and alerted the police.

On September 3, a Waymo employee was alerted that a gun had been detected in one of its driverless cars in the Outer Richmond neighborhood of San Francisco. The company pulled the driverless car over and alerted police to the presence of the weapon.

Police were dispatched to 40th Avenue just before 4 a.m. and engaged in what SFPD spokesperson Allison Maxie described as a "high-risk vehicle stop," according to SFGATE.

She said that police searched the car and found an "AR-styled assault rifle also known as a ghost gun," and also found "suspected marijuana and mace spray" on the minors.

Both suspects, one male and one female, were arrested and booked into the Juvenile Justice Center, according to SFPD. They will face charges related to the illegal possession of a firearm.

Police have chosen not to release the suspects' identities due to their ages.

Waymo's Rider Rules prohibit carrying a weapon of any type inside its driverless cars. It's not clear exactly how the Waymo detected the firearm, especially one described as a "ghost gun" by the SFPD.

Ghost guns are typically homemade guns, often created using partially 3D-printed parts. They are not registered weapons and don't have serial numbers, and are thus more difficult for law enforcement to track.

The incident wasn't the first time Waymo employees called the cops on their customers. In July, company employees called the San Mateo Police Department to report that two 15-year-old boys were allegedly drinking alcohol and shooting water beads while cruising around in the car, according to SFGATE.

In that case, Waymo reportedly did not alert the riders that the police had been called, and allegedly fed them a false story to explain why the car was pulling over.

The teens "were told the vehicle had issues" before it pulled over, according to San Matteo Police Department spokesperson Jeanine Luna, who spoke to Business Insider about the incident earlier this year.

She impressed that the vehicle's doors were never locked, so the teens could have exited the car at any time before police arrived.

It's unclear if Waymo used a similar tactic to keep the juveniles with the ghost gun from exiting the vehicle.

The Independent has requested comment from the company.

Waymo has been in operation since 2009, when it was launched by Google, and eventually broke off to become its own company in 2016. It began operating in San Diego, Denver, and Tampa earlier this month.