S A N TA M O N I C A
REFLECTING THE CONCERNS OF THE COMMUNITY smmirror.com
May 20 – May 26, 2022 Volume CXLI, Issue 145
INSIDE
Santa Monica Travel Summit Of 2022 Returns To Take On Tomorrow
PAGE 2
Motional And Uber Eats Launch Autonomous Deliveries In Santa Monica There are plans for expansion into the rest of Los Angeles
Motional, a global driverless technology leader, and Uber Technologies Inc today launched autonomous deliveries for Uber Eats customers in Santa Monica, California. Motional’s all-electric IONIQ 5 vehicles, operating autonomously, are now conducting end-to-end food deliveries. Autonomous delivery signifies the next phase of Motional’s commercial roadmap,” said Abe Ghabra, Motional’s Chief Operating Officer. “This service will provide the learnings and experience needed to make Motional the trusted AV provider for on-demand delivery networks. We’re proud to partner with Uber on this important milestone and begin introducing Uber Eats customers to autonomous technology.” “At Uber, we’re always looking for ways to use new technology to help consumers go anywhere and get anything,” said Noah Zych, Global GM for Uber’s Autonomous Mobility and Delivery business. “We’re thrilled to begin piloting with Motional in California and are eager to see how their promising autonomous technology will begin to change how people and goods move throughout the world for the better.” Motional and Uber announced their partnership in December of last year, signaling important firsts for both
Photo: Corstsey Motional
companies: the first on-road autonomous vehicle (AV) pilot on the Uber Eats network and Motional’s entry into the autonomous delivery market. Motional and Uber see an opportunity for AVs to benefit the ondemand delivery space by providing safe, cost-efficient, and reliable deliveries. The companies look forward to learning from the service and receiving customer
feedback, as they jointly develop an automated delivery model that could quickly scale to more areas across Los Angeles and other cities. The goal of the pilot is to create the groundwork for future commercial activities between Motional and Uber. The Motional IONIQ 5 vehicles used in the service have been adapted to enable autonomous deliveries. While Motional has
extensive experience moving passengers, this is the company’s first time transporting commercial goods. To prepare, its teams have spent months studying every touchpoint between the restaurant and end-customer and conducted extensive testing in the Los Angeles area. Participating merchants will receive a
Motional, see page 5
Man Charged with 2018 Santa Monica Killing Spree Sentenced There are plans for expansion into the rest of Los Angeles
A man, Ramon Escobar, has pleaded guilty to killing five men and injuring an additional seven others as reported by ABC News 4.com, and was sentenced to imprisonment for life on May 6. The sentence comes with no possibility of parole. The 50-year-old immigrant from El Salvador was sentenced to multiple life sentences for the murders that came with additional charges of special circumstances and attempted murder. He also plead guilty to the murders of his aunt and uncle in Houston, Texas in 2018 during a Zoom call hearing. Even though those murders were committed in a different jurisdiction, Escobar will serve all of the terms for the crimes he plead guilty to consecutively in the state of California. According to the prosecutors in the case, Escobar killed his relatives after they gave him a place to stay in Houston. He then fled
Texas when the police questioned him about his aunt and uncle’s disappearances. The Houston police said that Escobar confessed to murdering Dina Escobar, age 60, and Rogelio Escobar, age 65. Escobar said that he beat his uncle to death because he felt disrespected and then murdered his aunt when she went looking for her brother two days later. Escobar had been hiding in her truck. He dumped their bodies in two dumpsters and their remains were eventually found in a landfill. Escobar was homeless when he began to assault people in LA and in Santa Monica during the two-week period after he got to Los Angeles in September of 2018 after his arrival. According to the prosecutors, Escobar used bolt cutters or a baseball bat as a bludgeon on people as they slept on the beach or on city streets. Only one of his victims wasn’t unhoused. Police interviews with Escobar revealed that he claims to have killed some of his victims because of minor issues. He claimed that he killed some of them because “they irritated him, they were disrespectful to law
Photo: Sam Catanzaro
enforcement or he robbed them because he needed money.” as quoted by ABC News 4.com from the prosecution’s sentencing memo. This is borne out by surveillance footage in which Escobar is seen rummaging through the belongings and pockets of some of his victims. Ramon Escobar is no stranger to criminal activity and has previously served a fiveyear sentence for burglary in Texas and
has previously been convicted on assault and trespassing charges according to the authorities. He was born in El Salvador and has been deported no less than six times during the period between 1997 and 2011. He returned to the United States again illegally and when he won an appeal of his most recent deportation case, he was released from federal immigration custody in 2017 according to U.S. Customs and Immigration Enforcement.