Police: Spokane Valley woman arrested after recklessly driving past Tesla protesters in Liberty Lake

Liberty Lake Police arrested a Spokane Valley woman outside a Tesla dealership over the weekend after she sped by protesters of company owner Elon Musk while flipping them off and ignoring officers’ sirens, nearly causing a “significant” crash, police reports say.

Louise Powell, 68, was taken into custody Saturday near Spokane County’s Tesla dealership and cited on suspicion of reckless driving and driving without a license. At the time of her arrest, Spokane County citizens were gathered outside the dealership to protest Musk, who is President Donald Trump’s adviser behind the controversial Department of Government Efficiency.

Musk, an unelected billionaire, began working with the U.S. government after Trump’s victory and made decisions to cut federal programs and jobs without congressional approval through DOGE.

Musk’s actions have angered a number of citizens, federal workers, unions and Democratic leaders, spurring frequent anti-Tesla demonstrations across the nation known as “Tesla Takedowns.” In the last couple of months, Spokane County has seen these protests outside the Tesla dealership at 1805 N. Pepper Lane in Liberty Lake. Previous protests outside the local hub have remained peaceful, according to coverage from The Spokesman-Review.

An officer stationed outside Saturday’s protest wrote of seeing Powell speeding through the Tesla parking lot in a blue Volkswagen Beetle. The officer started following Powell until she entered another parking lot across the street at a high speed, the police report says. The officer turned on his lights and sirens in an attempt to stop her, but said she entered the main roadway without slowing down.

A separate officer documented Powell speeding and weaving in and out of the roadway, yelling out the window and flipping off protesters. She made a sharp right turn onto North Bitterroot Street and then a wide, illegal U-turn, which “nearly caused what would have been a significant accident,” according to the police report. When Powell came back, she was allegedly driving towards the sidewalk, swerving towards the center lane at a high speed and still making gestures at the protesters.

Liberty Lake Police Chief Damon Simmons was traveling south in his patrol car and tried to intercept Powell with his emergency lights on, the report states. Powell initially tried to drive around him, but there was no room to keep going. At that point, she was asked to exit her car and placed under arrest, the police report says.

Powell, pictured during her arrest wearing a top emblazoned with Trump’s “You’re Fired” slogan, had no valid driver’s license, according to the report. She was taken to the Spokane County Jail for booking, but jail staff advised they could not take her due to a medical issue, so her brother was called to pick her up. Her Volkswagen Beetle was also towed and impounded for blocking the roadway.

“I am certainly glad that no one was hurt and that the Liberty Lake police were present and able to take her into custody. Thanks to the Liberty Lake police for taking our safety seriously,” a Facebook post from an anti-Tesla group said. “… Her behavior is reckless and could have seriously injured someone.”

The same day, a man in Florida sped his car into an anti-Musk group protesting outside a Tesla dealership in Palm Beach, according to the Washington Post, and a counter protester was found brandishing a stun gun outside a Tesla showroom in California. No injuries were reported.

Later that same day, an anti-Musk protester was arrested in Meridian, Idaho, for allegedly hitting a pro-Trump counterprotester with his car. The man was treated for non -life-threatening injuries, the Idaho Statesman reported, and the protester was booked into jail on a felony charge of aggravated battery with use of a deadly weapon or instrument.

As Tesla protests grow and vandalism against Teslas have gained more traction in the last few weeks, Musk has accused ActBlue, a Democratic fundraising platform, of a coordinated effort to fund the demonstrations. He’s also taken to his social media platform, X, to claim any vandalism against Teslas or its stores should be considered “an act of terrorism.”

U.S Attorney General Pam Bondi, a longtime Trump ally, announced charges last week against three people from Oregon, Colorado and South Carolina for allegedly setting Teslas or its charging ports on fire, calling it a “wave of domestic terrorism.”

Although there is no federal domestic terrorism law on the books, prosecutors are able to use state law to attempt to convict a defendant. Experts have long argued domestic terrorism in the U.S., like hate-based acts from far-right and white supremacist groups, should be tracked and treated with the same concern as foreign terrorism, especially after increasingly hostile race-based rhetoric following Trump’s first term. Many were outraged in 2015 when former FBI Director James Comey refused to call the mass murder of nine Black South Carolina churchgoers an act of domestic terrorism because he said there was a lack of political motivation.

The government has shown no urgency around domestic terrorism committed by white supremacist groups in the past, according to research from Mike German, a former FBI special agent and fellow in the Brennan Center’s Liberty and National Security Program.

“We need a smarter approach that ensures resources are directed toward the deadliest terrorist threats,” German and his colleague, Sara Robinson, wrote in 2018. “And we need to evaluate those threats based on objective evaluations of potential harm, not political considerations that prioritize some communities over others.”