A self-driving Waymo taxi was spotted on video blocking emergency vehicles from responding to the scene of a deadly mass shooting at a packed bar in downtown Austin early Sunday.
Matthew Turnage ordered an Uber ride after leaving a club in the area around 2 a.m. and noticed the car was “stuck” on West 6th Street and Nueces Street — just two minutes away from where a gunman killed two people and wounded 14 others at Buford’s Backyard Beer Garden, KXAN reported.
“We left a club at 2 a.m. and were walking to get a ride home. We just so happened to get a Waymo car from Uber, and when we found the car, it was trying to pick us up but got stuck in the middle of the street and blocked emergency vehicles for a couple of minutes,” Turnage told the outlet.
The clip captures the Waymo taxi — which operates autonomously without a driver — idling perpendicular across the road as an ambulance waited for the vehicle to move.
The Waymo then slowly inched upward and turned into what appeared to be a parking garage area, but the ambulance had already reversed down the street to find another path, the video showed.
Emergency personnel responded rapidly to the incident, and medics were on scene within 57 seconds of receiving the initial call at 1:59 a.m., officials told the outlet.
Riders within 133 square miles of Austin — from North Austin to Downtown to Manchaca — have been able to access driverless Waymo vehicles for their Uber journeys since January, according to an Uber press release.
The driverless cars — which are in several US cities — have been subject to much scrutiny after a slew of mishaps, including striking a child near an elementary school in Santa Monica and a near-collision with a family in Los Angeles.
Police responded to reports of a male shooter at Buford’s Backyard Beer Garden — near the University of Texas-Austin — just before 2 a.m., officials said at a press conference.
The shooter, later identified as Ndiaga Diagne, 53, of Senegal, was killed minutes after the carnage by responding cops. The FBI has been probing the incident as a possible act of terrorism.
“There were indicators that on the subject and in his vehicle that indicate potential nexus to terrorism,” Alex Doran, a special agent with the FBI’s San Antonio field office, told reporters.
