It's Now a Hate Crime to Vandalize Teslas in DC

[riversedge]

It’s Now a Hate Crime to Vandalize Teslas in DC

A splashy manhunt over anti-Musk graffiti shows just how far the capital will go to placate the Trump
administrationhttps://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2025/03/27/elon-musk-tesla-vandalism-hate-crime-washington-dc-00252290.



By Michael Schaffer 03/27/2025 10:00 AM EDT

...................
Add Mayor Muriel Bowser’s D.C. government to the long list of blue-state entities cornered into genuflecting before Donald Trump.
............
The announcement read more like pro-Tesla White House messaging than a public-safety notice from a blue city’s police force: “The suspects wrote political hate speech onto the victims’ Tesla vehicles then fled the scene,” the police press release declared. “The Metropolitan Police Department is investigating these offenses as potentially being motivated by hate or bias.”

The document was accompanied by security camera pictures of a man and a woman believed to be the perps. They are still at large. The department’s X post about the investigation was subsequently reposted without comment by Musk himself.

..................

In fact, according to police reports I reviewed, the so-called hate speech actually consisted of sarcastic zingers like “Let’s do away with the administrative state! Buy a tesla!” “I like what Musk is doing,” “Go Doge I support Musk killing the dept of education,” “Ask me about my support of Nazis,” and “I love Musk and hate the Fed Gov’t.”

To be sure, these are crimes: . ...............
................

But calling it hate speech seems like a stretch — and it isn’t hard to imagine ulterior motives for making such a stretch. “For me it’s a good example of how you can have well-intentioned legislation that leads to absurd results,” said Patrice Sulton, the executive director of the D.C. Justice Lab. “You get to just weaponize something that’s not the purpose for which it was passed.”.........................






President Donald Trump, accompanied by Tesla CEO Elon Musk, speaks next to a Tesla Model S on the South Lawn of the White House, on March 11, 2025. Trump spoke out against calls for a boycott of Musk's companies and said he would purchase a Tesla vehicle in a show of support. | Andrew Harnik/Getty Images

It’s Now a Hate Crime to Vandalize Teslas in DC

politi.co/4c2hXYg via @politico

— (@oceancalm.bsky.social) 2025-04-05T09:54:12.589Z