{"id":418449,"date":"2026-07-30T20:08:17","date_gmt":"2026-07-30T20:08:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/418449\/"},"modified":"2026-07-30T20:08:17","modified_gmt":"2026-07-30T20:08:17","slug":"man-accused-of-taking-backhoe-on-joyride-through-north-park-in-court-nbc-7-san-diego","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/418449\/","title":{"rendered":"Man accused of taking backhoe on joyride through North Park in court \u2013 NBC 7 San Diego"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A man accused of stealing a piece of construction machinery and taking the backhoe on a joyride through North Park pleaded not guilty to charges stemming from the incident Wednesday. <\/p>\n<p>Liam Quigley, 28, was charged with one count of vehicle theft and two counts of vandalism after allegedly stealing the backhoe from a construction site near University Avenue and Utah Street Monday. San Diego police said Quigley pummeled through street signs and garden beds until coming to a crash at the North Park Observatory, where he caused about $25,000 in damage.  <\/p>\n<p>The Mission restaurant General Manager Guy Guadagni said he witnessed the incident as he was sipping on a cup of coffee Monday morning.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It was wild. I had to call the police. I had to get somebody out here. I didn\u2019t want nobody getting hurt,&#8221; Guadagni said.<\/p>\n<p>Video shared with NBC San Diego showed the machine rolling down the street, dragging its bucket along the blacktop and sending sparks flying. Photos showed the machine downed traffic-sign poles and planter boxes. Another showed police tape surrounding the excavator as it sat outside a damaged sign for the North Park Observatory.<\/p>\n<p>Quigley is set to re-appear in court on Aug. 6. <\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/1785442097_685_excavator-stolen.png\" loading=\"lazy\"   alt=\"Video shared with NBC San Diego showed an excavator driving through North Park. San Diego police say it was stolen.\"\/><\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\tNBC 7NBC 7<\/p>\n<p>Video shared with NBC San Diego showed an excavator driving through North Park. San Diego police say it was stolen. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A man accused of stealing a piece of construction machinery and taking the backhoe on a joyride through&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":414289,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[983,74,76,75],"class_list":["post-418449","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-diego","tag-north-park","tag-san-diego","tag-san-diego-headlines","tag-san-diego-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/418449","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=418449"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/418449\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/414289"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=418449"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=418449"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=418449"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}