A woman has been arrested after police said she damaged a Tesla dealership with an automatic BB gun in Gwinnett County, one of several acts of violence targeting the electric vehicle company across the United States in recent months.
Alexa Beckstead, 23, was charged with felony second-degree criminal damage to property after police said she fired several shots into the dealership on Satellite Boulevard near Duluth early on April 28, blowing out the windows.
According to her warrant, the two custom glass windows were valued at about $20,000. The warrant stated she shot the compressed gas gun “indiscriminately into the building from a moving vehicle.”
Credit: Gwinnett County Police Department
Credit: Gwinnett County Police Department
“Investigators did not identify a specific motive,” police spokesperson Juan Madiedo told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Tesla cars and dealerships have been targets of vandalism across the country following company owner Elon Musk’s work with the Department of Government Efficiency. The attacks have occurred in places like Massachusetts, South Carolina, Oregon, Washington and Colorado, where Molotov cocktails were thrown at vehicles and the words “Nazi cars” were spray-painted on a dealership, according to the Associated Press. Protests have also been held outside the buildings.
In March, Attorney General Pam Bondi said the attacks were “nothing short of domestic terrorism.”
“The Department of Justice has already charged several perpetrators with that in mind, including in cases that involve charges with five-year mandatory minimum sentences. We will continue investigations that impose severe consequences on those involved in these attacks, including those operating behind the scenes to coordinate and fund these crimes,” Bondi said at the time.
Madiedo said the damage to the Gwinnett dealership appeared to be an isolated incident “as investigators are not aware of any previous cases involving a Tesla dealership being targeted.”
Gwinnett officers did arrest a man April 11 for keying a Tesla vehicle in a Costco parking lot on Venture Drive, according to police. The victim was shopping at the time.
Police said Beckstead was identified as a suspect through surveillance footage across the county from the dealership, vehicles and Flock cameras, which are installed around metro Atlanta and can track cars via license plate numbers. She was booked May 1 and posted a $11,200 bond Tuesday, according to online records.
Investigations into the incidents are ongoing.
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