Taking Over

A Sideshow State in a Crumbling Culture

They seem to appear out of nowhere.  200 vehicles arrive at a major intersection and then with a swift and coordinated effort, they shut down all four directions of approach with hasty blockades made by parking in the street.  This establishes “The Pit” in the intersection where they conduct the side show.  The drivers, or “swingers”, set up along the limit lines and take turns doing burnouts, donuts, and “rollbacks” in the intersection.  Onlookers will shine high power lasers through the tire smoke at the wheels of the involved vehicles while other pedestrians will participate by standing in the pit during the side show to see how close they can get to the spinning vehicles without being hit.  This whole event is an exhibition of driving skill for the swingers and physical courage for the pedestrians and everything is being recorded for social media to generate likes and followers.  The event lasts for about 30 minutes and then breaks down and moves on as quickly as it started.  This group will reappear at five to ten more intersections throughout the evening until they finally disperse for good.  This is what is known as a sideshow takeover.

While clogging up intersections is a nuisance, its not the only reason these groups are a problem.  Motorists who get caught up in these takeovers are often assaulted and have their vehicles vandalized when they complain or confront the event participants.  The takeover crowds are also openly hostile towards law enforcement.  They will use their bodies and their vehicles to block officers from getting to the swingers and if they encounter one or two officers without substantial backup, they will assault the officers and vandalize their patrol vehicles.   The chaos and unpredictability of the crowds can lead to a mob mentality that escalates and leads to additional crimes.  Businesses are sometimes overrun and looted by the participants when they know there is no way for law enforcement to get in and stop them.

Side show takeovers are believed to have originated in the Oakland, Ca area in the 1980’s.  They have since grown in popularity and spread across the country.  I first noticed these events in late 2020 when one of our officers went viral on TikTok as he chased an involved suspect on foot through a crowded takeover event.  Other uninvolved people stepped in between the officer and the person he was chasing and prevented him from catching the suspect.  They then gathered in a more concentrated group and forced the officer to retreat.  Every few months after that incident I would notice calls for service where we had reports of hundreds of vehicles blocking intersections and doing burnouts.  I spoke with officers who had responded to some of these calls and they reported having their patrol vehicles kicked and hit with flying objects from these crowds.  While this was a frustrating problem, it was happening during the most deadly years for homicides in our city with back to back record breaking years in 2020 and 2021.  Motorists causing traffic jams and committing low level crimes were low on the priority list when the bodies kept piling up in the streets.

All that changed in May of 2022.  Our Homicide Division and Gang Unit had greatly impacted the violent crime problem and reduced our shootings and homicides to a level they hadn’t been in years.  We had a little breathing room to focus on other problems when the next side show takeover came.  They were at an intersection in the northeast part of town and we were receiving multiple calls from citizens.  Two officers were dispatched and one arrived a short time later.  He was immediately attacked by the crowd which surrounded his patrol vehicle and hurled rocks and bottles at him.  The officer was forced to retreat and called for additional officers over the radio.  By the time we had enough officers to take action, most of the crowd had dispersed and was on the way to the next location.  I arrived last and found, much to my chagrin, that we had not arrested anyone.  This mob was able to not only take over a major intersection, but they were able to assault a police officer in public and then drive away with no consequences. 

It may sound like an ego problem to say it bothers me when people attack police and get away with it, but it really has nothing to do with my ego.  My problem is when these attacks go unchecked, they encourage future attacks and more lawless behavior.  In the social media world we live in, these incidents get recorded, shared, and then go viral.  These viral videos inspire others to go out and behave the same way because they believe they can get away with it.  Each incident feeds off the other incidents and causes a cultural spiral.  That is what sideshow takeover culture is all about.  It is the excitement of the exertion of lawless power over societal norms which is supercharged by the internet.  The longer these events are allowed to continue, the greater the decay of societal norms.  It may sound hyperbolic to refer to sideshow takeovers as an existential crisis, but I would ask what the purpose of a police force is if it is not to stop marauding gangs of people from damaging property and hurting people?

Going back to the May 2022 takeover, I gathered the officers I had available, about 10 officers in eight vehicles, and we responded in a coordinated effort to suppress the takeover at two more locations.  We made seven arrests and impounded four vehicles that night, but considering there were approximately 200 vehicles and 300-500 people involved, our operation was not very successful.  After that night, I started studying sideshow takeovers and I learned everything I could about their culture as well as their tactics, techniques, and procedures.  With the help of some motivated and creative officers, we developed a strategy for shutting down the takeovers and discouraging future takeovers from occurring.

One of the important things I learned was that only about 10 percent or less of the vehicles present are actually doing stunts in the intersection and the rest are being used to block.  Also, many of the spectators are actually participating by putting themselves in the roadway to block responding officers.  They have a culture that encourages this type of participation from all the spectators and this is what allows the “swingers” to perform the stunts with minimal risk of being caught by police.  These pedestrian and vehicle blockers are rarely detained or arrested because most police agencies are hyper focused on catching the drivers doing the stunts, and because it is hard to articulate an arrestable offense for someone standing in the street.  I realized that without the blockers, the “swingers” would not be able to operate at all.  The question was, how do we arrest the blockers and destroy the fun of parking or standing in the roadway to block an intersection?

I will try not to bore you with legalese but we found a vehicle code section which could be charged as an infraction, which is just a citation, or as a misdemeanor, which is punishable by a fine and minimal jail time, which stated it was unlawful to block a public street for the purpose of a sideshow takeover.  This applies to both motorists and pedestrians.  Since these people were all acting in a coordinated effort to block the intersection for a takeover, this meant they were committing a conspiracy.  The crime of conspiracy, PC 182, can be charged as a misdemeanor or a felony.  We would charge everyone we could detain with the misdemeanor vehicle code section and a felony conspiracy which allowed us to book them into jail.  We knew the felonies would not stick, but we didn’t care because the point was to take away the fun for the people we could catch and to serve as a lesson for the ones that got away.  We also determined that since these events are recorded by the participants and uploaded to social media, their cell phones contained valuable evidence and needed to be seized.  Unfortunately for them, our digital forensics unit is so backed up it takes six months to a year to process most requests which means they don’t get their phones back for at least that long.  We also impound all vehicles we can get stopped for 30 days which costs the vehicle owner about $1,200 in fees.  Lastly, all drivers that we arrest get their licenses revoked and have to go through the entire DMV testing process to get them reinstated. 

There are several moving parts in one of these operations and since the locations of the takeovers are not known until a few minutes before they start, we have to remain flexible.  The basic jist is we get as many officers as we are allowed to use for the operation and then divide them up with different assignments.  About one third of them get assigned as “trojan horse” units.  These are unmarked undercover cars that are loaded with at least four officers each.  These officers wear their regular uniforms but use cover shirts as a disguise and remain in their vehicles until given the designated signal to exit.  They blend in with the crowd and the blockers and position themselves as close to the action as they can.  Trojan Horse units each have several sets of spike strips they use to prevent vehicles from leaving.  The rest of the officers divide into two groups of marked patrol vehicles that coordinate with each other to approach the takeover from two directions.  As the marked units get about 15 seconds from the takeover, the trojan horse units are given the signal to execute.  The trojan horse officers place their spike strips in positions to prevent the blockers from leaving and then detain as many people as possible.  They attempt to detain the drivers parked in the front and the back of the blocking formation first in order to create a blockade which traps the vehicles in between.  The trojan horse officers have the autonomy to go after whoever they want, but they understand our objective is to arrest as many people as possible and to specifically target the blockers. 

The responding marked units react to whatever they see in front of them as they arrive with the same goal of arresting as many participants and impounding as many vehicles as possible.  If there are any marked units to spare, they are directed to go after the swingers as they flee the scene.  After the May 2022 takeover, we implemented this strategy at three subsequent events and each time we got better.  The last event occurred on December 30, 2022 and it was the biggest success.  We hit them at one intersection and arrested 69 people and impounded 37 cars.  There were 13 juveniles in that group and most were released to their parents, but the other 56 people were booked on felony charges.  All 69 had their cell phones seized and all 37 vehicles were placed on a 30 day hold with a $1,200 impound fee.  The message was loud and clear.  If you come to our town to have a sideshow takeover, you are not going to get a fun video for your Instagram.  You are not going to have a good time.  You or someone you know is going to go to jail, lose your phone, lose your license, and lose your car for 30 days.  Now it has been almost a year since the last sideshow takeover.  These events used to pop up every two to three months, but now they have gone away entirely thanks to the creativity and dedication of our officers.

I may sound like an old fuddy duddy shaking my fist and yelling at the neighborhood kids to get off my lawn, but I don’t care.  I always try to contextualize the law enforcement decisions I make from the perspective of a tax paying citizen.  If I wasn’t a cop, if I was a blue-collar tradesman who lived in my city, what would I expect from my police department?  If these sideshow takeovers happened near my house, or I got caught in one on my way home from my plumbing job, how would I feel about it and what would I want my police department to do.  I have been criticized (never directly) for “chasing these street racers” because of the public safety risk it presents.  Public safety is my number one priority and I always balance that with the need to pursue someone.  My basic answer is that Travis the plumber would expect his police department to do whatever it took to shut down lawless flash mobs and I would be really pissed off if they thought it was never worth the risk to chase after them.  Again, no person’s life is worth catching one of these low-level felonies, but we absolutely have an obligation to end this behavior and this culture wherever it pops up.  There are many reasons why people are fleeing California for other states, and sideshow takeover culture is a symptom of a larger problem that is causing our citizens to leave.  It is probably too late for the Golden State, but we should do everything we can to turn this trend around.