California: Police Raid Car Enthusiast Gathering

**spincycle** · 04-07-2008, 04:28 PM

Craziness: California: Police Raid Car Enthusiast Gathering, Generate Revenue

Anyone know anything about this?

SafetyDave · 04-07-2008, 04:38 PM

The "news site" (if you can even call it that) doesn't seem to give all the info about the raid....
But based on limited info, I can tell you that this wouldn't fly in Washington State....

Sometimes you have to pay to play...

**FJDave** · 04-07-2008, 04:42 PM

Uh, this "gathering of enthusiasts" is a well-known street racing venue. It gets "raided" dang near every month. The local officers tow several cars, cite a LOT of people, all for illegal modifications, illegal street racing, drugs, weapons, etc. A few are booked into jail for warrants, drugs, weapons, etc.

It is NOT what the site says. I can tell you that with a clear conscience.

1 Bored Clerk · 04-07-2008, 04:42 PM

I was tempted not to respond since this is near to my heart, but I can't resist.

This stuff ticks me off!! No racing going on...accusing people of being 'street racers' just because they have modified cars. Ridiculous. I bet at least half of the cops involved in this fiasco have a modified muscle car (or import), motorcycle, or 4wd rig at home that they routinely break the law in...burnouts, speeding, 'street racing', illegal modifications. It's all a bunch of hypocritical bull. "Why do you need all that power in your car unless you are street racing"...indeed. All vehicles should be federally mandated to have no more than 36HP so no one gets hurt. I'm sure that cop wasn't thinking of the 69 Camaro with a swapped in LS7 pictured in a poster in his garage. This is a great time to be a car fanatic; cars just keep getting better and better...as long as you don't want to actually drive your car.

edit based on post above this one - I don't care if street racing has taken place there before...were they street racing? Illegal modifications...okay...anyone into cars will have one or two of those (by the book).

I think street racing is stupid, but the information posted on this raid seems to step over the line.

**jeshua** · 04-07-2008, 04:45 PM

OK maybe the cops here on the forum can help me understand this a little better.

How can you be ticketed for these things when you are on private property and not on public property like a street? I would think that the cops would have had to ticket each car as it left the parking lot since technically speaking no laws were broken with the cars parked in a parking lot on private property.

Do you think if / when these tickets are taken to court that the "street racers" will / could win based on the cars being parked on private property and not driven on the streets when ticketed?

1 Bored Clerk · 04-07-2008, 04:54 PM

I don't know about the private property deal. I think there is some leeway there with 'quasi-public' land. I think that your residential driveway and parking lots fall into that category. You can test it out by doing donuts in a parking lot in front of a cop and see what happens.

SafetyDave · 04-07-2008, 04:58 PM

Quote:

1 Bored Clerk previously said:

I was tempted not to respond since this is near to my heart, but I can't resist.

This stuff ticks me off!! No racing going on...accusing people of being 'street racers' just because they have modified cars. Ridiculous. I bet at least half of the cops involved in this fiasco have a modified muscle car (or import), motorcycle, or 4wd rig at home that they routinely break the law in...burnouts, speeding, 'street racing', illegal modifications. It's all a bunch of hypocritical bull. "Why do you need all that power in your car unless you are street racing"...indeed. All vehicles should be federally mandated to have no more than 36HP so no one gets hurt. I'm sure that cop wasn't thinking of the 69 Camaro with a swapped in LS7 pictured in a poster in his garage. This is a great time to be a car fanatic; cars just keep getting better and better...as long as you don't want to actually drive your car.

This more has to do with the crime that takes place with the people "street racers" than the cars or modification. Stolen parts, drugs and guns is a huge problem with "street racing." Not saying they are all bad, just there are bad people involved in it.

Need an example....ever heard of motorcycle gangs? Most Harley guys are legit doctors...but then you have the Angels (for example) which is a front for organized crime.

You notice that the police don't raid the porsche meetings.... the reason...not many bad guys drive porsches.

In my own experience, I've got lots of guns, warrants, drugs, stolen parts and stolen cars out of "import" cars. Haven't done that in a Porsche yet...

And as I said, not all bad guys drive Hondas or FJ's

...
Just my two cents...

SafetyDave · 04-07-2008, 05:01 PM

Quote:

jeshua previously said:

OK maybe the cops here on the forum can help me understand this a little better.

How can you be ticketed for these things when you are on private property and not on public property like a street? I would think that the cops would have had to ticket each car as it left the parking lot since technically speaking no laws were broken with the cars parked in a parking lot on private property.

Do you think if / when these tickets are taken to court that the "street racers" will / could win based on the cars being parked on private property and not driven on the streets when ticketed?

Good Question! Thats why this would fly in Washington State....

**FJDave** · 04-07-2008, 05:08 PM

Yo, bored clerk....when was the last time you were here in So Cal, and saw what the participants were doing? Why do you believe this one-sided "article" over someone who HAS been there and assisted with one of the operations? Come on, man....get real.

Yes, there is illegal street racing going on there. They didn't report that because it doesn't fall into their "victim" angle on the story. Yes, there are state and federal grants to combat illegal street racing. When was the last time you saw a news story about a street racer killing himself/innocent bystander/etc? I heard of one this weekend.

One of the things we do is to hit them when they gather, BEFORE the street racing starts. We use the illegal modifications to take the cars, etc., BEFORE they kill someone. And before we can do it, we have to have evidence of the racing, shootings (and the shootings happen at almost every "enthusiast gathering" at that same location), etc., before we can start to take enforcement action like this. It saves lives. What is your loved ones' life worth to you? Just wondering....

Some will always think it's BS that we do what we do. Again, it saves lives. Trash us all you want. Talk all the poo you can. It doesn't bother me in the least, as I KNOW WE HAVE SAVED THE LIVES of many people by doing things this way.

**FJDave** · 04-07-2008, 05:09 PM

Jeshua - there is a California statute that says when people gather for the purpose of committing crimes (street racing), we can take enforcement action. There ya have it. Again, we have to have extensive documentation of the illegal nature of the gathering before we can take enforcement action. In this case, they have that documentation.