A federal IT staffer filed a complaint about DOGE, then went public. Shortly after Elon Musk boosted a post calling his claims false, his brake lines were cut. Now he’s suing for defamation.

A federal IT staffer filed a complaint about DOGE, then went public. Shortly after Elon Musk boosted a post calling his claims false, his brake lines were cut. Now he’s suing for defamation.

  • Hasherm0n@lemmy.world
    87·
    2 days ago

    Buried a little in the article, this was a bit more than just “… breaks cut”

    and had the car seen by a mechanic who, according to the report, found “that the driver-side front impact/airbag sensor had also been removed but noted that the remaining wires had been spliced together, completing the circuit in a manner that prevented the vehicle from detecting or logging the missing component, while also preventing the vehicle from activating its safety protocols, alerting the driver, or engaging limp mode.” The police report also indicates that fingerprints had been found on Berulis’ car. According to the police report, the case is now “inactive,” “due to the lack of any specific suspect information,” though the police’s intelligence unit was notified.

  • solidheron@sh.itjust.works
    71·
    2 days ago

    You’d think someone would recognize their brakes were tampered with when they press it to start a car or get out of the driveway

    • moncharleskey@lemmy.zip
      121·
      2 days ago

      That depends. On most modern vehicles, the front brakes do the majority of braking. Cut the rear brake line and you may get several presses at what feels like adequate pressure, but when the master cylinder runs dry and sucks in air past the piston, no more brakes. Who knows without being there, but it’s definitely possible, especially for someone that doesn’t drive often or doesn’t notice a pedal feeling slight off. I have had people come in and hand me a brake pad that fround so thin it slipped out of the bracket. People can be oblivious sometimes.

      • solidheron@sh.itjust.works
        2·
        2 days ago

        Yeah that’s definitely true, people walk around like they don’t understand where they are.

        I guess you’d really have to press the break to feel pressure drop

      • solidheron@sh.itjust.works
        1·
        2 days ago

        Lol now I’m imagining someone cutting the break on an incline and the person trying to pull onto the road starts falling backwards

        • deliriousdreams@fedia.io
          1·
          2 days ago

          I mean. Maybe. But in all actuality that doesn’t happen easily on automatic cars because of the way automatic transmissions are built. Parking pawl holds the transmission while it’s parked. Then the valve body system and the torque converter work together to keep the car moving in the direction it’s geared in. So in drive you’d be geared to move forward and so on.

  • Korhaka@sopuli.xyzEnglish
    48·
    3 days ago

    Glad I ride a bike, if you cut the brake lines you would make a mess that is kinda obvious with the brake fluid going everywhere. Plus I would notice the brakes don’t work before even getting on it.

    • glimse@lemmy.world
      30·
      2 days ago

      Yeah, you’ll definitely be safer if you ever, uh, work for the government file a whistleblower complaint. Another point to bikes!

      Jokes aside, it’d be way easier to kill you on a bike and they could make it look like an accident. Plus it’s not like those are the only 2 options.

      • frongt@lemmy.zip
        111·
        2 days ago

        You don’t even need to make it look like an accident. You can murder a cyclist by hitting them with your car and get just like six months in prison.