ROSWELL, Ga. — Street racing in the cities and suburbs, along with so-called “intersection take-overs” and reckless stunt-driving, are seemingly everywhere, and they are tough enough for police to stop.
But now—even worse: In Roswell a police officer was attacked by the crowds. She’s okay.
Police told 11Alive her dash cam video and other videos may have captured a good look at her attackers, leading possibly to their “capture” for real.
It was Sunday evening, April 17, at about 7:20 p.m. Donut drivers loudly took over the intersection of Rucker and Houze Roads in Roswell and drew a cheering crowd--a crowd that didn’t like it when the first police officer drove up to break up the party.
That crowd turned on the officer.
“She was essentially surrounded by several individuals,” said Roswell Police Officer Tim Lupo, Tuesday, “who began to kick, strike the squad car, actually damaged several portions of the squad vehicle.”
The crowd was so out of control, the officer was “fearing for her safety,” according to the police incident report.
Even so, she and additional officers who arrived were able to arrest three suspects on the spot. Now police are identifying more suspects from the officer’s dashcam video.
And when police went on social media asking people in the crowd for their own videos, people began sending them in.
“We've received a very positive feedback from the community and a lot of help from them,” Lupo said. “They've been sending us a lot of both video, that they took themselves as witnesses who were kind of caught up in these events, and also just things that they've come across on social media depicting these things as well. So the community has been incredibly helpful in our efforts to identify these individuals, and we imagine they will continue to be so.”
For more than a year now, street racing and stunt driving at intersections throughout metro Atlanta have been the focus of a special crime suppression task force of state and local law enforcement agencies arresting participants and trying to stamp it out.
Roswell Police have not, yet, been part of that task force, Lupo said. But the city did enact a new ordinance last year cracking down not only on the drivers, but also on bystanders and on people who post videos online promoting the incidents.
“I think that the danger and concern in them is evident just from what you see in these videos taking place,” Lupo said. “There's hundreds of people who are outside of their cars while people are engaging in this very dangerous, risky driving behavior. People very close to these cars that are spinning around and spinning out. And it just takes one very small, slight move or twitch of the wheel to send that car careening into a large crowd of people and have many potential injuries.”
Tuesday, the Georgia State Patrol, which helps coordinate and manage the state task force, emailed 11Alive confirming that the task force is aware of more and more communities on the outskirts of metro Atlanta and beyond reporting similar street racing and reckless driving incidents, and the GSP said the task force is ready to expand enforcement to those areas.