East Long Beach street take over

East Long Beach  street take over

For approximately twenty minutes on Friday, July 9, 2021 dozens of cars took over the intersection of Stearns and Bellflower Blvd.

The squealing tires and smoke from the burning rubber along with the roar of souped-up  mufflers on the cars racing up and down Bellflower started just after 10:30 pm and lasted for over 20 minutes. During those 20 minutes before the Long Beach Police Department arrived,  some of the cars raced on the wrong side of the road down Bellflower Blvd.

When the police arrived driving south toward the crowd from the direction of the 405 freeway, the cars began racing south down Bellflower, many without their headlights on.  A few cut into the Los Altos Village residential streets in what appeared to be an attempt to evade any police. 

The LBPD did not pursuer the cars but instead stayed at the intersection of Steans and Bellflower to clear it out.  The dark rubber marks in the intersection are still visible.

The street takeovers promoted on social media have had deadly consequences for both drivers and bystanders. Many of the bystanders come with the cars to video the takeovers for social media. 

Regular street takeovers in the Los Angeles suburb of Sylmar took an inevitable  dangerous turn last month when a car predicating in the street takeover almost hit a pedestrian before slamming into a near-by business and heavily damaging it.

This year the City of Anaheim passed an ordinance aimed at giving the police more power to deal with the takeovers, including charging spectators.  Both city’s responses were to incidents where people were injured in street takeovers in those cities.  Other California cities enacting similar ordinances.

The street takeover problem grew nationwide during the pandemic. In May, the state of Georgia passed a law to deal with the growing problem.  The new Georgia law creates a new crime category called reckless stunt driving, requires mandatory jail time and increases fines and penalties on participating, organizing or promoting the takeovers.

UPDATE 7/14/21:  Councilman Supernaw has proposed Long Beach develop an ordinance to address street racing. For more information CLICK ON: 

Supernaw requests Long Beach ordinance to target street takeovers