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Crime Power United States Technology

Florida Man Arrested For Cutting Electric Scooter Brakes (bbc.com) 87

Posted by BeauHD from the Florida-man dept.
A man in Florida has been arrested for cutting the brake lines on dozens of public scooters. The man has been identified by police as 59-year-old Randall Thomas Williams of Ford Lauderdale, though a possible motive has not yet been released. The BBC reports: According to Fort Lauderdale police, a surveillance operation was set up over the weekend after more than 140 scooters were vandalized. Randall Williams, 59, was captured on camera cutting brake lines over three days, police say. When Mr Williams was arrested on Sunday, he was found carrying two pairs of wire cutters and wearing one glove. He has been charged with criminal mischief as well as resisting arrest and "loitering or prowling."

"In the early morning hours on September 28, 2019... the defendant was observed walking around the neighborhood, hiding in the shadows, and utilizing the dark alleyways to conceal himself from public view," according to the police arrest report. It said he placed white stickers over the QR codes used by riders to activate the scooters. During his interrogation "the defendant failed to dispel officers' alarm as to why he was lurking in the shadows and using the alleyways behind closed business, which are not normal avenues of transport for law-abiding citizens," police said. The companies who owned the scooters have since removed the scooters in the vicinity to avoid rider injury.
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Florida Man Arrested For Cutting Electric Scooter Brakes More

Florida Man Arrested For Cutting Electric Scooter Brakes

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  • After what he did (Score:5, Funny)

    by burtosis ( 1124179 ) on Wednesday October 02, 2019 @07:35PM (#59263598)
    No ones going to cut this guy any breaks.

  • "Florida" man (Score:5, Funny)

    by rmdingler ( 1955220 ) on Wednesday October 02, 2019 @07:35PM (#59263600) Journal

    I mean, if you had to bet....

    • Additionally, several chad were observed hanging out of his pockets.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by quenda ( 644621 )

      I mean, if you had to bet....

      Yes, for those who do not know, this was a popular internet meme* for a while.

      FLORIDA MAN [wikipedia.org]

      For Aussies, Florida is a bit like Darwin, but with 20 million people. Though since they do not believe in evolution, they would not have a town by that name.

      * apologies to Richard Dawkins.

  • Good. In fact, fucking great (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Snotnose ( 212196 ) on Wednesday October 02, 2019 @07:47PM (#59263630)
    I don't like the assholes who leave these scooters everywhere. I think idiots who don't check the brakes and such before riding their randomly found scooter are incredibly stupid (I ride a bike, I check my brakes before every ride, and I store my bike in my apartment).

    But these assholes that cut brake lines and such? Attempted murder at least, more if someone actually got hurt.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by rtb61 ( 674572 )

      Well no, these things were dumped in public spaces not parked temporarily and honestly a scooter without brakes as no more dangerous than a scooter with brakes you sneaky liar. The centre of balance is all wrong, you hit a scooter brake hard enough to really slow you in an emergency and over you will go or very little braking, as back brake only. To slow down fast on a scooter there is only one way, jump off and try to hold onto the scooter whilst remaining upright. Simply glue the scooter in place, funny a

      • Or you can just use a sharpie marker to draw doodles all over the QR code. Kind of hard for the company to bill anybody that uses it if those codes aren't readable.

      • a scooter without brakes as no more dangerous than a scooter with brakes you sneaky liar

        That's neither a lie nor sneaky, and if you can't tell the difference between a scooter with brakes and one without, I don't want to be near you when you drive.

        The scooters weren't dumped either, just parked without due care and attention. Dumping implies it's not intended to be used again, which was not the case here.

    • I don't like the assholes who leave these scooters everywhere.

      Yeah, I feel the same way, and agree that it’s still wrong to vandalize the things - regardless of whether there’s a risk of human injury or not.

      Now, I admit that creatively relocating them might get a smile out of me. I chuckle whenever I see the Lime bikes that regularly get stashed in the underground parking lot at UW.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by Cederic ( 9623 )

      Rendering the QR Codes unreadable seemed a suitably proportionate response that, while no doubt illegal in itself, does not put people at risk.

      I'm not sure why this idiot felt the need to also try and cause potentially lethal accidents.

    • Attempted murder at least, more if someone actually got hurt.

      No one is going to get charged with attempted murder for that! Probably some form of manslaughter if the breaks fail on the road leading to death.

    • Yeah. If it's just for vandalism because he hates scooters he could have slashed tires and seats. It'd make the scooter need repair and no one would try to use it when it isn't safe, or at least flat tires are more obvious and you'd less likely to get up to speed before noticing somethings off.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by b3e3 ( 6069888 )
        They're stand-up scooters, like a kid's "Razor" but with a motor and battery-- solid skateboard/rollerblade wheels and no seat. Obscuring the frame's QR code (so people can't scan it to rent one) seems like the easiest solution to render them non-operable.

    • Good points. I don't know if tampering with safety systems is a serious crime in the US, but it should be. I once lived in a place uphill of a college, with a 30 degree slope downhill right out of my door, for 300 m, and a cliff edge at the end. If both brakes on my bike suddenly failed on that hill, no way would I come off with anything less than a serious injury while attempting to emergency-brake at 40 kph in a roadside bush.

      I made an effort to try the brakes before each descent, but for sure forgot a fe

    • I ride a bike, I check my brakes before every ride

      So do I, but that didn't save me when when someone cut a brake line on my bike. I'm always using the rear brake, so I didn't notice the front brake had been cut as I rode off. Until I heard a clicking noise and looked down to see the brake pads just bouncing off the sides of the front wheel. I had enough time to form the thought, "Funny, they're not supposed to do th--" before my bike flipped end over end through the air like I was a stunt rider in a movie. I think I must have been pretty dazed when I got t

  • It's *FORT* Lauderdale, not Ford.

  • He has been charged with criminal mischief as well as resisting arrest and "loitering or prowling."

    That's all? No charges related to attempting to cause harm to riders? Fucking Florida.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by N1AK ( 864906 )
      We're talking about a state where you can follow someone about and hassle them because you don't like the look of them and if they act remotely threatening towards you then shoot them without doing anything wrong in the eyes of the law...

    • It's a felony.

      (1)(a)A person commits the offense of criminal mischief if he or she willfully and maliciously injures or damages by any means any real or personal property belonging to another, including, but not limited to, the placement of graffiti thereon or other acts of vandalism thereto.
      ...
      3.If the damage is $1,000 or greater, or if there is interruption or impairment of a business operation or public communication, transportation, supply of water, gas or power, or other public service which costs $1,000 or more in labor and supplies to restore, it is a felony of the third degree, punishable as provided in s. 775.082, s. 775.083, or s. 775.084.
      ...
      (5)(a)The amounts of value of damage to property owned by separate persons, if the property was damaged during one scheme or course of conduct, may be aggregated in determining the grade of the offense under this section.

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • Hard to say it was done with attempting to harm riders. Those things don't got that fast that you cannot stop them without the brakes.
      I would agree with you if he had been tampering with the brakes so that testing them show they work but when you put hard pressure on them they broke. that could lead to injury but with them broken at the start of the ride the user had warning.

  • While in San Francisco, I saw a man get a knife out of his backpack and slash the tire of an Lyft bicycle. He was barely even trying to hide his actions.

    As for motive, I can only speculate that he has signed up to "repair" the bicycles, and was creating work for himself. Or maybe he just has a grudge against Lyft?

    Perhaps the scooter man was trying to create demand for scooter repairmen?

    • Dr. Cutty van Knife here,
      professional job creator.

    • While in San Francisco, I saw a man get a knife out of his backpack and slash the tire of an Lyft bicycle. He was barely even trying to hide his actions.

      As for motive, I can only speculate that he has signed up to "repair" the bicycles, and was creating work for himself. Or maybe he just has a grudge against Lyft?

      Perhaps the scooter man was trying to create demand for scooter repairmen?

      Well, at least they caught the rat.

    • He was barely even trying to hide his actions.
      San Francisco has essentially decriminalized crime so why would he bother hiding his actions? All he was risking was becoming a "justice involved person".

  • A guy in my neighborhood keeps peeing in the street. Should I post a slashdot story?
    • Only if it's Elon Musk.

    • A guy in my neighborhood keeps peeing in the street. Should I post a slashdot story?

      Sorry hcs, it's a bladder infection, I'll try to hold it in next time.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by skids ( 119237 )

      If:

      A) You live in Florida: No, because that pales in comparison the the guy at the end of your street eating pizza naked at a card table in the middle of the intersection.

      B) You do not live in Florida: No, because nobody will notice it because they are looking for FloridaMan stories.

  • He was simply working on filming a new episode of Impractical Jokers.

  • Yeah, I know, nobody likes these fucking scooters littered around towns, count me in among the haters. But what this man did is attempted murder, and it could have affected people who usually park the scooters attentively.

    • If you throw enough stones at a tiger, he will leap a 12 foot wall, and rip your head off. (Precisely this happened.)
      Do you think it is wise to blame the tiger? (Or even murder him?)

      There is s point, where there is no excuse.

      Granted, cutting the brakes is a pretty shit choice. On the plus side, it is so blatanty obvious with the lines not being attached and tense, so it will only affect the morons directly.

      But e-scooters are a brutally retarded concept, from the same like of unreasoning as iWatches or those

  • Why would a scooter need brakes?

    • Why would any vehicle that is designed to be ridden on the road need a mechanism that might help them prevent a collision with a 2 ton truck? It's just an absurd piece of technology, that's why I have brakes removed from all my cars as soon as I buy them and I expect my scooters to be sans brakes too!

      • Not having brakes increase safety. It would force you to think on your feet and be adaptive and evade things properly and not just drive like a zombie hitting the brakes all the time.
  • Tune in next week for another exciting adventure in the legend of... Florida Man!
  • Is Ford Lauderdale anywhere close to Chevy Lauderdale?

  • Florida Man Arrested

    Don't worry, there's plenty more where that came from.

  • If that was in my neighborhood, I'd be sick of it too.

  • IMHO, the culprit is clearly a frustrated engineer trying to convince people that the scooters should have had regenerative braking.

  • He's the hero we deserve, but he is not the hero we need. So we'll hunt him, because he can take it.

    A silent guardian, a watchful protector.

  • Where exactly is Ford Lauderdale?

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