Did your car witness a crime? Bay Area police may be coming for your Tesla — and they might tow it

Tesla cameras show the multiple angles that are recorded around the vehicle. Teslas are now routinely deployed in police investigations if they were parked anywhere near a crime scene — even if the car wasn’t involved.

By Rachel Swan, Reporter Aug 31, 2024

A Canadian tourist was visiting Oakland recently when he had to talk someone out of taking his Tesla from a hotel parking lot.

This was no thief. It was the Oakland Police Department. Turns out, the Tesla may have witnessed a homicide.

In Oakland and beyond, police called to crime scenes are increasingly looking for more than shell casings and fingerprints. They’re scanning for Teslas parked nearby, hoping their unique outward-facing cameras captured key evidence. And, the Chronicle has found, they’re even resorting to obtaining warrants to tow the cars to ensure they don’t lose the video.

The trend offers a window into how mass surveillance — the expansion of cameras as well as license-plate scanners, security doorbells and precise cellphone tracking — is changing crime-fighting. While few cars have camera systems similar to Teslas, that could change rapidly, especially as the technology in vehicles continues to improve.

“We have all these mobile video devices floating around,” said Sgt. Ben Therriault, president of the Richmond Police Officers Association.

Therriault said he and other officers now frequently seek video from bystander Teslas, and usually get the owners’ consent to download it without having to serve a warrant. Still, he said, tows are sometimes necessary, if police can’t locate a Tesla owner and need the video “to pursue all leads.”

“It’s the most drastic thing you could do,” he acknowledged.

In at least three instances in July and August, Oakland police sought to tow a Tesla into evidence to obtain — via a second court order — its stored video. Officers cited the cars’ “Sentry Mode” feature, a system of cameras and sensors that records noise and movement around the vehicle when it is empty and locked, storing it in a USB drive in the glove box.

The case involving the Canadian tourist happened July 1 outside the La Quinta Inn near the Oakland airport. When officers arrived at the parking lot shortly after midnight, they found a man in an RV suffering from gunshot and stab wounds. He was later pronounced dead at Highland Hospital.

Officers also noticed a gray Tesla parked in the stall opposite the RV.

“I know that Tesla vehicles contain external surveillance cameras in order to protect their drivers from theft and/or liability in accidents,” officer Kevin Godchaux wrote in the search warrant affidavit obtained by the Chronicle, noting that the vehicle was perfectly positioned to document what happened.

“Based on this information,” Godchaux wrote, “I respectfully request that a warrant is authorized to seize this vehicle from the La Quinta Inn parking lot so this vehicle’s surveillance footage may be searched via an additional search warrant at a secure location.”

Oakland police officials did not respond to a request for comment, nor did the Tesla owner back in Calgary. A source familiar with the investigation said the owner showed up as crews were loading his car onto a tow truck and intervened. When he volunteered the video, police released his vehicle.

There’s no guarantee that a Tesla will record a crime that occurs near it. That depends on factors including what mode the car is in and whether the system is triggered. But police who view Teslas as rolling surveillance security cameras aren’t taking chances.

“When you have these cars on the roads that are constantly capturing information, even when they’re parked, the police can look to them as a resource,” said Saira Hussain, a staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation who specializes in government surveillance. “That obviously puts third parties — people who are not involved at all — in the crosshairs of investigations.”

Similar issues have come up with self-driving cars now on the road in San Francisco and other cities, which are also equipped with sophisticated video capability, Hussain noted. But in those cases, police subpoena the tech company — typically Waymo — because it owns the cars and the data. Tesla drivers, by contrast, get served individually because they control their own camera footage.

In recent years, Tesla camera footage has played a variety of roles in police investigations, most commonly offering evidence after crashes but also documenting crimes perpetrated on a car’s owners or identifying a burglar who enters a car. The use of court orders related to crimes that occur near a Tesla appears to be a newer wrinkle.

On July 13 in Oakland, an argument between several people outside a beauty supply shop at 40th Street and Telegraph Avenue escalated when five of them drew guns and began shooting at each other, police said, killing a 27-year-old woman.

Oakland police officer Roland Aguilar obtained a search warrant to tow three vehicles, including a Tesla Model X with Kansas plates, writing in a court affidavit, “This video could provide valuable information relevant to the ongoing investigation.”

Weeks later, two men were charged with murder and a raft of other felonies in connection with the shooting. Probable cause declarations for their arrests referred to “high-definition quality surveillance footage” of the homicide, without specifically mentioning the Tesla. Police had also gathered video from a nearby market, the affidavit said.

Another search warrant affidavit from Oakland police described an incident on Aug. 12, in which the city’s gunfire detection system prompted officers to rush to 13th and Center streets in West Oakland. There, they found a man with a gunshot wound to the head in the back seat of his girlfriend’s Tesla. The girlfriend, also in the car, gave officers a “partial statement,” the affidavit said. Officers took a bloody cell phone she was carrying and allowed her to leave.

Though officers found no weapons inside the Tesla, they towed it as evidence, believing its cameras may have recorded the crime, according to the affidavit. Paramedics drove the victim to Highland Hospital, where he was listed in critical condition. No arrests have been made in the case.

Tesla video could be crucial as well in prosecuting a young man over a homicide that occurred in January in San Jose, said Sean Webby, a spokesperson for the Santa Clara County district attorney.

Webby said the Tesla was “not associated with either the suspect or the victim,” but happened to be parked nearby, he said, when the driver of an Infiniti intentionally ran over an already wounded man and then kept going.