Overview
- Philadelphia police say officers responded to a disturbance on the 1200 block of Filbert Street near Reading Terminal Market after Carolyn Marvin repeatedly stood in the path of an Uber Eats delivery robot and ignored multiple commands to move.
- Officers arrested Marvin and issued a criminal violation notice for disorderly conduct after the standoff that followed the robot along a Center City sidewalk.
- Marvin, a 78-year-old University of Pennsylvania professor emeritus, has blocked delivery robots on multiple prior occasions and says she views the action as protected speech and will contest the charge on First Amendment grounds.
- Uber declined to comment on the incident in local reports, and witnesses and videos from earlier encounters have drawn renewed local attention to the confrontations.
- Delivery robots began operating in Philadelphia in March and their growing use has prompted debates about job loss for human couriers, sidewalk access, and whether similar protests could trigger further legal and policy disputes.