Man Arrested For Firebombing Google Headquarters And Street View Car

Short Bytes: A one and a half month long chase between the police and a man accused of attacking Google Street View car ended on June 30. The man admitted that he did this because he thought he was being watched by Google and he was upset about that.

Google’s self-driving cars roam around in different places to capture images and footages of the surroundings which fuel their Street View feature. No one would have thought some person would try to harm one of these innocent autonomous vehicles. The reason was given that he “felt Google was watching him”.

An Oakland-based man named Raul Riaz was arrested by the cops for burning a Street View car. According to the affidavit filed in the San Jose District court on July 1, Raul was possessing a firearms case and ingredients required to make a pipe bomb in his car when the police found him outside the Google campus on June 30. Diaz has been charged with one count of arson. As per the affidavit, Diaz accepted guilty for setting a Street View car ablaze and firing shots at Google office windows.

He started all of his melodrama for the reason that he believed Google was spying on him and he was upset about that. On May 19, he threw Molotov Cocktails on a self-driving car parked in the Mountain View campus. His bad luck, the Molotov he threw bounced back and fell on the ground making negligible damages to the car. Diaz didn’t stop there, he came back about a month later and threw shots at the Google office building where he was noticed by a Google employee.

Technology has its advantages–the man was seen by one of the many digital eyes installed at the campus. The police managed to identify the SUV–supposed to of Diaz’s–present during the two attacks.

A few days later, a Street View car was found in ash form and a man holding a water gun filled with an inflammable liquid was captured in a video footage. However, Google later backpedalled on the fact that the vehicle which was covered in flames was a Street View car.

Raul Diaz was recognized as a feasible suspect by a police officer while he was driving the same SUV captured in the camera footage. After his arrest, Diaz admitted his hatred for Google and that he thought they were watching him.

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