By Steve Pomper
Tire marks on pavement as after street takeovers (Photo: Sergio Valle Duarte, Creative Commons)
In 2020, during the inception of the politically engineered Saint George Floyd controversy, Minneapolis’ anti-police Mayor “Barely There” Jacob Frey refused to allow the cops to suppress a BLM/Antifa rebellion that went on to destroy a police precinct. This set up the rest of America for the devastation that followed.
Something eerily similar is happening with the anti-Semitic protests and violence on America’s elite college campuses. Had Columbia University immediately clamped down on school policy violations and criminality, this Jew-hating ugliness may not have spread as it has, across the nation.
But this is what happens when the supposed “adults” running our public and private institutions fail to act like adults? They give overt and tacit “permission” for people to misbehave.
After Columbia University President Nemat Shafik “boldly” established “red lines,” three times now, the troublemakers continue to cross them. She and other university presidents are playing the part of anti-Semites protecting those who intentionally conflate First Amendment rights with a mythical right to break the law—so long as you’re making a “good” point.
Chanting and holding a protest sign is your constitutional right. But you don’t have a right to hold a sign and chant while preventing people from walking or driving to where they have every right to go—even if you’re making a “good” point. Essentially, you’ve taken hostages.
This overt and tacit permission to misbehave has led to violence and dangerous behaviors. Americans across our great nation watch as they see people getting away with all manner of criminal behavior from petty to felony—especially if the violators belong to the “right” groups of people. Apparently, anti-Semitism is A-Okay on too many college campuses.
This criminal activity includes the recent phenomenon of street takeovers. You’ve likely seen videos showing young drivers, their car tires screeching black, smoking stripes onto the pavement, hijacking intersections, with vehicles fishtailing perilously close to the gathered crowds. If you’re not familiar, check out the NPA’s own Stephen Owsinski’s excellent article, Street Takeovers and Law Enforcement Strategies.
But sometimes, the cars don’t just come close to bystanders. Sometimes they strike people, hurling them through the air and onto the pavement, or pulling them under the car’s wheels. In LA, recently, after reviewing street takeover videos, police are looking for the suspects and victims involved in a vehicle that apparently struck two onlookers. Officials said it appears at least one female may have suffered severe head injuries.
According to an ABC7 News headline on YouTube, the “LAPD offers $25K reward for street takeover hit-and-run that injured woman.” Police say a suspect was doing “donuts when they lost control of the vehicle…” and “hit at least one pedestrian…” before fleeing. Witnesses said the victim was bleeding from a head wound and was lying unconscious on the pavement. Bystanders put the victim in a car and transported her to an unknown location.
On the other coast, as reported by WXII 12 News, Davidson County, North Carolina, saw the problem and created the Street Takeover Task Force to address this criminal activity. They are investigating an incident from June 2023.
Detectives identified the “masterminds and participants… and were able to seize several vehicles during the execution of multiple search warrants.” A grand jury indicted three male suspects for “felony inciting to riot.” Police then arrested the three. The court set bail at $150,000 bond for two of the suspects and $10,000 for one.
The UNC School of Government Blog showed that the felony charges were made possible by NC General Assembly legislation passed last year when they criminalized “street takeovers.”
Other states are also taking legislative action. Last year, according to KSAT 12, Texas passed House Bill 1442, which Gov. Greg Abbott signed into law. Its author Rep. Ann Johnson said, “You never know who you’re going to hit, who you’re going to kill, or who you’re going to hurt. And so that’s why this provision is so important because it is intended to be a large deterrence.”
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Johnson effectively warned street takeover drivers: if you keep doing this, we’ll take your cars. In one incident after the law went into effect, police made several arrests, issued two traffic tickets, impounded three cars, and seized two guns.
Police say the ability to seize the vehicles, which requires a seizure hearing to reclaim a vehicle, keeps the cars off the road for longer and may make the driver think twice about doing it again. As Owsinski wrote, “Indeed, it is not a comfy process to get one’s vehicle out of impound. Perhaps that will dissuade others, discouraging street takeover involvement. Who knows?”
In New England, recently, Katie Langley of NBC Connecticut reported, “The Connecticut House of Representatives passed a bill yesterday that would help municipalities crack down on street takeovers.”
House Bill 5413 would authorize cities to create laws penalizing street takeovers with fines of up to $2,000 and make available grants totaling half a million dollars to assist police with enforcement.
The bill is awaiting action in the Senate. Langley reports a recent uptick in street takeovers. She wrote, “Five people were arrested in connection with an attempted takeover in Hartford last month and a string of takeovers hit Shelton, Milford, Derby and North Haven in December 2023.”
In Fairfax, VA., in early April, things got even worse, especially for one police officer. NBC 4 Washington reported, “Video from an officer’s dashcam shows the officer’s view as she pulled into an industrial complex near the Mixing Bowl [a freeway interchange]. A herd of people, some wearing masks, surrounded her cruiser.”
The officer reported over radio that the crowd, wearing masks, had surrounded and “beat on her cruiser.” Some of them tried to open her door. Police found one social media image showing a person at the scene hanging out of a car window holding “an assault-style long gun.”
One of the backing officers responding to the officer’s call for help was struck by a “driver who was speeding away.” This is more than youthful behavior; this shows blatant disrespect for both the laws and those who enforce them.
As Chief Kevin Davis explained, all their officers had to be diverted from other victims to help an officer surrounded by a violent mob, some of them likely armed. Those other calls in the community are put on hold when this kind of stuff happens.
Police have arrested four suspects so far, with prosecutors filing charges including assaulting an officer “and abduction, for allegedly not allowing an officer to move freely and willingly—effectively trapped her inside her car.”
Back to Connecticut, similar to what happened in Virginia, during one street takeover last December, a crowd surrounded a police officer who was investigating a small fire started by people throwing M-80s. According to the Daily Voice, “During this check, the officer was surrounded and hit, punched, and had an unknown object thrown at his head.”
It’s encouraging that officials want to “fix” the problem, but I’m concerned that legislative remedies tend to provide political gifts to officials, some using the issues to run for re-election. For example, lax law enforcement policies allowed for street takeovers (and anti-Semitic campus takeovers–encampments) to proliferate.
Then the officials try to play “savior” by sponsoring legislation—to “fix” something they shouldn’t have let get out of hand in the first place. There are often existing laws to deal with these crimes.
Last I checked, negligent and reckless driving and vehicular assault and homicide (as well as trespassing and threats to kill people) are already crimes. How about we allow the cops to vigorously enforce laws against any behavior that clearly jeopardizes public safety anywhere it occurs?
Then, we won’t need to “fix” something our leaders never should have broken.