Florida Man Arrested for Driving SUV Into Crowd of Anti-Tesla Protesters
Driver Andrew Dutil was charged with aggravated assault following the incident, which saw him mount his black Nissan Pathfinder onto the sidewalk and slowly advance towards the protesters, forcing them to disperse.
'He drove into a crowd of senior citizens,' said Mark Offerman, head of the Democratic Progressive Caucus for Palm Beach County who organized the event.
'Everybody was able to move out, but two older women were really almost clipped,' he told the Palm Beach Post. 'We immediately called the cops.'
Dutil reportedly claimed at the scene that he worked at the dealership in question, but is in fact thought be an Army engineer and former Iraq War vet who has written about his love of Donald Trump. He arrived at the scene at around 1 p.m. to find around 150 people gathered to protest Tesla CEO Elon Musk's cost-cutting measures with the so-called Department of Government Efficiency.
The peaceful protest, organized by the local Democratic Progressive Caucus, saw demonstrators wield signs which read 'Shame' and 'Musk is a rat' to largely supportive onlookers.
Following Dutil's action, police towed his car and interviewed around five people on the scene. The rest of the demonstration appeared to pass without incident.
The protest is the latest in a series of demonstrations which have seen Tesla showrooms, charging stations, and individual vehicles targeted as part of a pushback against the Trump administration.
At least nine incidents have been reported in recent weeks, which include a Tesla showroom in Las Vegas set ablaze with the word 'resist' daubed across the building's front doors in red paint, and four Cybertrucks in Seattle attacked with Molotov cocktails.
To date nobody on either side of the protests has been harmed, although Musk and other Trump allies have condemned the attacks on Tesla as 'domestic terrorism'—a charge the FBI is aware of but refuses to endorse.
'Was this terrorism? Was it something else? It certainly has some of the hallmarks that we might think — the writing on the wall, potential political agenda, an act of violence,' said FBI agent Spencer Evans following the Vegas attack. 'None of those factors are lost on us.'
Last week the FBI released a public service announcement warning the public to be vigilant and to be on the lookout for suspicious activity at Tesla dealerships, citing concerns over arson, gunfire, and vandalism.
'Since January 2025, incidents targeting Tesla EVs have occurred in at least nine states,' the statement read. 'These incidents have involved arson, gunfire, and vandalism, including graffiti expressing grievances against those the perpetrators perceive to be racists, fascists, or political opponents. These criminal actions appear to have been conducted by lone offenders, and all known incidents occurred at night.'
'Individuals require little planning to use rudimentary tactics, such as improvised incendiary devices and firearms, and may perceive these attacks as victimless property crimes,' they added.
During Trump's first term properties owned by the president became focal points for protesters; a role experts believe is now being filled by Tesla.
'Tesla is an easy target,' Randy Blazak, a sociologist who studies political violence, told AP News. 'They're rolling down our streets. They have dealerships in our neighborhoods.'
'We're outraged and we're appalled,' Offerman told the Palm Beach Post. 'What we hope to do here in Palm Beach County, where the nerve center of the GOP is, is wake everybody up to this fact.
'Mar-a-Lago is here. Trump is here. This is his home. We have big problems with the way that our government functions, and find it very anti-American. So we want to wake people up, and we're taking on this national call.'
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