Authorities tired of street meet-up scofflaws driving circles around them moved to put the brakes on the deadly pastime Monday by pushing for stiffer penalties for the criminals.
Tinseltown has been plagued in recent years by the illegal gatherings, organized on secretive social media channels, in which hooligans in cars take over public roadways for donuts, burnouts and other stunts.
The locations are broadcast on private social media, and organizers can make big money promoting wannabe speed demons on their channels, authorities said.
“These reckless stunts are terrorizing our local communities, sometimes leading to death and often leading to looting, vandalism and other crimes,” LA District Attorney Nathan Hochman told reporters at a press conference Monday.
Hochman spoke after 40 to 50 cars took over the street in front of Crypto.com Arena, home of the LA Lakers in the wee hours Saturday.
In April, county officials agreed to double the fine for participating in street takeovers, making it $1,000, plus up to 90 days in jail. Even spectators could land fines and jail time.
But that wasn’t enough for Hochman.
“I would ask the Board of Supervisors to keep ratcheting up the penalties,” he said at LA’s Hall of Justice, calling for a fine of $2,500 for the second offence and $5,000 for the third.
He also warned that a would-be speed demon’s car might end up in a city scrap pile.
“If you’re a driver and you want to see that car crushed, literally crushed as we impound it, go ahead and test us,” Hochman said.
On Friday, a judge sentenced Dante Chapple-Young to 13 years in prison for slamming his car into a crowd of people while doing donuts at a street takeover in 2022, killing 24-year-old Elyzza Guajaca.
“It’s been long and hard for me and my family,” Guajaca’s mother Lorraine told reporters at the press conference Monday, fighting back tears. “We have put [the driver] where he belongs.”
Three people have died in street takeovers this year, authorities said.
The LA Police Department has intervened in 517 street takeovers since January, but officers only show up at around one in four of the incidents the department is alerted to, according to LAPD Deputy Chief Donald Graham.
Graham explained that going in guns blazing can make the situation even more dangerous.
“If you interdict too hard, now you’ve got 150 cars fleeing from a location at 100 miles an hour, which creates a whole other problem,” he said.
Graham also said illegal street mobs are becoming more vicious — both for civilians and the officers trying to break them up.
“It’s not like it was when I was doing street racing enforcement back in the early 2000s, when you showed up with two or three black-and-whites with the lights on and everybody took off,” he continued, explaining that even the act of calling for backup “becomes a real danger for [officers] as crowds of two to three hundred turn on those black-and-whites.”
Cops are working to monitor the social media channels that broadcast info about upcoming takeovers, and organizers may face felony conspiracy charges.
But the organizers usually broadcast on private pages or encrypted messaging apps, and they make last-minute changes to throw the cops off their trail, Graham said.
“We have our means [of investigating], and some of them I can’t get into here in an open forum, but it is more complicated than simply ‘Oh, did you see what’s on your Insta?’”
The LA County Board of Supervisors also plans to send letters to social media companies warning them to crack down on street takeover organizers — and threatening to hold them liable for the death and destruction if they don’t comply.
