Federal law enforcement agencies have turned to a variety of techniques and surveillance capabilities to identify people who have allegedly set fire to Tesla vehicles and property, including automatic license plate readers and social media crawling, according to newly unsealed court records obtained by 404 Media.
The documents come from cases that Attorney General Pamela Bondi announced on Thursday. The charges also come as sentiment towards Tesla and Elon Musk is at an all time low. People have participated in regular, and largely non-violent, “Tesla Takedown” protests, and there have been multiple acts of vandalism around the country, which has captured the attention of Musk, Bondi, and Donald Trump, who are now all claiming that vandalizing Teslas will be treated as an act of domestic terrorism. On Monday 404 Media reported that a website called Dogequest had doxed some Tesla owners, and that the website included a Molotov cocktail as its cursor.
Each of the arrests announced by Bondi happened earlier this month or last month, and new details about them are now available in court documents obtained by 404 Media. Details about the surveillance techniques used to identify the alleged vandals show that police used a combination of automatic license plate readers and social media monitoring to investigate two of the crimes. In the third, the suspect was identified based on a combination of license plate records and fingerprints left on a Molotov cocktail bottle.
The first case relates to a March 7 arson of a set of Tesla charging stations in South Carolina. Witnesses said that a man used red spray to write “Fuck Trump” and “Long Live Ukraine” in a Tesla charging station parking spot, according to court records. The male then lit beer bottles on fire and threw them at the charging stations, with some setting on fire, the documents say.
The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) collected evidence from the scene, including a charred piece of fabric suspected to be a wick and shards of glass bottle, the documents continue. Investigators reviewed surveillance video from a nearby restaurant and saw a white male in a grey sweater, black facemask, black shorts, and black shoes. During the footage, the man was carrying a green item, the documents say.
ATF investigators then reviewed more footage from the North Charleston Police Department (NCPD). In that clip, the man was not holding the green item. Investigators then found it: a cardboard bottle carrier for Holland 1839 beer. More footage showed the man getting into a white van and leaving the area, a Tanger Outlet mall, the court documents say.
Investigators then contacted the outlet mall’s security who said they had access to license plate reader (LPR) technology. LPR cameras are typically set up in a fixed area which continuously monitor which vehicles drive by and record their license plates. These systems are run by both government agencies and private businesses, and some surveillance contractors sell access to such data. The LPR footage identified the vehicle as a white 2006 Chrysler Town and Country van with South Carolina license plate 331ANL, according to the court documents.
Investigators then queried the South Carolina Department of Motor Vehicles to find who the vehicle was registered to. That led to the name Clarke-Pounder. The Tanger Outlet mall security consultants were then also able to pull a photograph of the man without his mask from their surveillance cameras, the documents say.
Authorities then performed open source research, including social media posts and app usage. The ATF says it obtained a phone number for Clarke-Pounder and found it was registered to a “mobile payment application.” That query provided the name “Daniel Clarke-Pounder.”
Investigators then searched for that name on another mobile payment app and reviewed the payments in that account. Some of those mentioned the user paying their rent, the document says. That led to an apartment address. To confirm it, authorities reviewed Clarke-Pounder’s Instagram and found a post in which he said “Haven’t posted in 3 years whoops. Well I’m a mechanic now, I live on James island with two of the best roommates and I’m enjoying life see yall in another 5 years.”
Authorities then obtained search warrants for Clarke-Pounder’s home and vehicle. They found what appears to be the same sweatshirt worn by the man in the surveillance footage and a receipt for Holland Lager 1839.
“Within the bedroom, SAs located a purple composition notebook on a desk next to the bed. The notebook contained a three (3) page handwritten statement, which asserted anti-government believes [sic] and statements opposed to the Department of Government Efficiency (‘DOGE’),” the documents say.
In another case in Oregon, police identified Adam Lansky through a mix of license plate lookups and fingerprints left on wine bottles used for Molotov cocktails. Lansky allegedly threw Molotov cocktails at Cybertrucks at a Tesla dealership in Salem on January 20 and allegedly shot at the same dealership on February 19 with a suppressed semi-automatic rifle.
The federal affidavit claims that Lansky caused $500,000 worth of damage at the Tesla dealership by damaging a total of seven Teslas, “with one vehicle destroyed.” Screenshots of surveillance footage included in the affidavit shows a person wearing all black, a hood, and a mask holding a lit Molotov cocktail and “an AR-15 style rifle with a suppressor.”
A section of the document reads:
“A review of the security footage showed the Subject traveling on foot from the east of the Tesla Center along Mission Street Southeast, pulling a black collapsible wagon. The Subject stopped behind the Tesla sign in front of the Tesla Center before moving toward the building. From there, the Subject can be seen lighting a Molotov Cocktail-style device and throwing it at a Tesla Cybertruck parked in front of the Tesla Center. The device bounces off the truck and does not ignite. The Subject then moves toward the showroom building. The Subject then lights two devices, throws one at the building and another at a red Tesla SUV parked in front of the showroom. The device bounces off the vehicle and breaks on the sidewalk. The Subject moves in between the Tesla SUV and showroom and lights another device and throws it to the north of the Subject’s position. At this point in the security footage, the Subject sees the eyewitness driving away, and the Subject drops the ignited device in the Subject’s hands and brandishes what appears to be an AR-15 style rifle with a suppressor and points it toward the eyewitness as the eyewitness drives away. The dropped device breaks near the Subject and ignites, and the Subject then takes his wagon and moves north to the front of the showroom. The Subject then throws a rock at the showroom window, shattering the glass and then throws an ignited device into the showroom. The Subject then throws two more ignited devices at two vehicles and takes off running toward the fence located to the west of the Tesla Center.”
In a third case, an agent with the ATF investigated a widely-reported case in Loveland, Colorado, where a woman named Lucy Nelson is accused of spray painting “NAZI” and “FUCK MUSK” on a Tesla dealership sign, vandalizing several vehicles, and throwing a Molotov cocktail at a cybertruck over the course of several days in late January and early February. An affidavit includes screen grabs of surveillance footage of a person wearing all black, a hood, and a mask walking through the Tesla dealership parking lot, and screen grabs of fires in the lot. The affidavit states that Nelson was identified because surveillance footage captured a Toyota Prius leaving a nearby parking lot, and a Flock automated LPR captured its license plate and showed it was registered to Nelson. Flock is a particular brand of LPR that has spread across the U.S., and is often purchased by individual communities.
Nelson’s Prius was later flagged by a license plate reader as being “mobile,” and police followed her to the Tesla dealership.
“On February 24, 2025, Loveland Police Department advised that a license plate reader alerted investigators that the Toyota Prius registered to [Lucy] Nelson was mobile, and surveillance was established. Nelson was followed by investigators to the area of the Tesla dealership in Loveland, Colorado where Nelson was observed parking the Prius and walking toward the business wearing the same clothing as was seen on the suspect during the February 7th incident. Nelson was observed by law enforcement wearing a satchel similar to the incident on February 7th. After walking around near the Tesla dealership, Nelson walked back to the Prius vehicle. Before departing in the vehicle, LPD officers arrested Nelson after investigators observed the described activity,” the document says.
Tesla claimed to investigators that Nelson allegedly caused $5 million worth of damage to vehicles at the dealership.
The Department of Justice’s announcement about the cases said that each defendant, if convicted, faces a minimum penalty of five years and up to 20 years in prison.
As keyboards have become a ubiquitous part of life, forever changing the way we work and communicate, Susan Kare has shaped that visual language. As a prolific graphic designer, she has designed the landscape of user interface design much more than can be quantitatively measured. Starting at Apple in 1983, she is the creator of many recognizable icons, including the Happy Mac, the bomb, and the floppy disk save icon, now synonymous with the action of saving, much like ‘Google’ is to ‘search’. Esc Keys from Asprey Studio features 32 of these icons in both gilded keycap and limited-edition jewelry form, bringing a love of pixelated nostalgia to the board and body.
Designer of the Geneva, Monaco, Chicago, and New York typefaces, she has had a hand in most computing interfaces and fonts we can recognize today. “Susan is an influential and pioneering artist who works with reduced palettes and resolutions to convey, in an immediately understandable way, complex and often inexpressible tasks,” shares Alastair Walker, Chief Creative Officer of Asprey Studio.
Available as pendants or keycaps, all rendered in either silver or gold vermeil, each icon recalls a different era of computing, one seemingly of expansiveness and possibility. As tech companies steadily monopolize more and more aspects of daily life, we wonder, could we establish a new wave of nostalgic technology, and foster a more sustainable relationship to consumption with smaller and more intentional collections?
There is hidden meaning to each of the designs in the collection, bitmaps telling a story of different interests people might like beyond the keyboard. Both a celebration of precious metals and a nod to computing history, the 32 keycap options heighten an otherwise utilitarian object into something one of a kind.
Asprey Studio is a digital and contemporary art gallery, focusing on the dialogue between our lives off and online. A new venture for Asprey London, who has set a standard of excellence for over 200 years, Asprey Studio focuses on a zero waste process with made to order products, dramatically reducing excess throughout several steps of the process. This way they can offer a premium product in every sense, produced thoughtfully and made to last, much like the icons that dot the Esc Keys collection.
To learn more about the Esc Keys collection, visit aspreystudio.com.
Photography and graphics courtesy of Susan Kare and Asprey Studio.
Nothing has been experimenting more with phone design than perhaps any other company, at least when it comes to traditional slide phones. The London-based tech brand just unveiled its latest and greatest devices in the form of the new Nothing Phone (3a) and Nothing Phone (3a) Pro. Thankfully, the new phones are as unique as ever – though the Pro model is perhaps the most interesting.
Like previous generation Nothing devices, the phones have their signature transparent look, which gives them a futuristic vibe. The Nothing Phone (3a) Pro is the first in Nothing’s lineup to offer a large circular camera module on the back, which is surrounded by Nothing’s Glyph Interface – made up of three LED lights that can indicate notifications, phone status, and more.
Nothing isn’t radically changing design for this generation, but it doesn’t necessarily have to, considering how well it’s built up its brand over the past few years. There’s definitely room for more experimentation when it comes to smartphone design, and it’s nice to see someone being a little more bold.
There’s another unique feature on the two devices. Both have Nothing’s new Essential Key on the side, which is an AI button that lets users quickly capture a screenshot or a voice note. This information is then sent to the essential space on the device, where it’s organized and processed. AI can then pull useful information out from that data, including things like dates, locations, and so on. You can then easily search through it without having to endlessly scroll.
The phones aren’t all about design, though. They’re actually very impressive phones in their price range. That’s largely due to the triple-camera array on the back of both of them, which is very uncommon for phones in the $350-$500 price bracket. Both devices have a telephoto camera, which can zoom at 2x on the standard Nothing Phone (3a) and 3x on the Phone (3a) Pro. That zoom is doubled through sensor cropping technology that allows the devices to capture 2x or 4x photos, respectively, without any loss in detail.
Both devices have a crisp display with a 120Hz refresh rate for smooth animations and a high level of brightness to make them easy to see outside. They have solid processing power, and they have Nothing’s well-regarded Android skin, which gives everything a kind of retro-minimalistic pixel design.
Both the Nothing Phone (3a) and Phone (3a) Pro are now up for order, with the Nothing Phone (3a) priced at $379 and the (3a) Pro at $459. They can be purchased from us.nothing.tech.
Photography courtesy of Nothing.
Ein Riss im Tragwerk der Brücke hatte sich in den vergangenen Wochen überraschend ausgeweitet, sodass sie aus Sicherheitsgründen am Mittwochabend ohne Vorwarnung gesperrt wurde.Ach naja, eine Brücke in Berlin, who cares? Nun, das ist nicht irgendeine Brücke.
Die Brücke ist Bestandteil des Autobahndreiecks Funkturm, über das jeden Tag rund 230.000 Autos fahren. […] Über die Autobahnbrücke fuhren täglich rund 95.000 Fahrzeuge, die nun einspurig auf die Gegenfahrbahn geleitet werden sollen.Die ist in den 1960ern schnell-schnell zusammengeschustert worden und stand schon länger auf der Müsste-man-mal-Liste der Bundesregierung. Zusammen mit 4000 anderen Bauten.
Auch der Riss war den Angaben der Autobahn-Gesellschaft zufolge schon länger bekannt. Dass er sich nun vergrößerte, kam indes überraschend.Also DAMIT konnte ja wohl NIEMAND rechnen, dass Risse in Beton von alleine nicht besser sondern sogar schlimmer werden!1!!
Die Polizei selbst spricht von einem "Festhalte- und Transportgriff".Oh ach SO ist das! Bedauerlicher Zufall, dass er auch auf Schmerzauslösen optimiert ist!
Ja gut, aber wenn das Verwaltungsgericht jetzt entscheidet, dass das rechtswidrig war, dann werden wenigstens die Täter belangt und aus dem Verkehr gezogen, oder? ODER?
Wie die Berliner Staatsanwaltschaft auf Anfrage mitteilte, wurde das Verfahren inzwischen eingestellt. "Den Beschuldigten konnte nicht mit hinreichender Wahrscheinlichkeit nachgewiesen werden, dass sie bei dem Einsatz unverhältnismäßige Gewalt angewendet haben", sagte ein Behördensprecher. Die Entscheidung des Verwaltungsgerichts ändert daran nichts.Hey, wenn der Trump auf Gewaltenteilung und Recht und Gesetz scheißen kann, dann ja wohl auch die Berliner Polizei und Staatsanwaltschaft!