More than 470 emergency calls during Vallejo sideshow, police say
Vallejo police have reached their limit with sideshow activity.
(Graphic by Solano News Update)
More than 470 emergency calls were placed to the Vallejo Police Department within a three-hour window Sunday evening as officers dealt with nearly 100 cars driven by rowdy teenagers and 20-somethings in one of Solano County’s most-urban cities.
In a press release issued late Monday evening, a Vallejo Police spokesperson called the sideshow activity “destructive,” one that drains the department of much-needed emergency resources and pushes the agency to the brink.
“Not only are these sideshows themselves a danger to the people who participate, they drain our department of resources needed to provide public safety to our residents,” Shawny Williams, the city’s police chief, said in a statement sent to reporters.
Since the start of the year, officers across Solano County have found themselves dealing with sideshows — grassroots auomobile exhibitions where young people gather in large parking lots and cruise up and down main streets in flashy, expensive sports cars — at least once every two weeks. Many of the shows are organized on social media, which clues officers in to where they will take place and when.
But that advanced planning often isn’t enough, even when officers are able to get mutual assistance from nearby agencies. What takes place is typically a game of cat-and-mouse where law enforcement attempt to disperse the crowd by corralling most cars into a corner of a city.
The coronavirus pandemic has made things worse, with angsty young people feeling social pressures to gather coupled with state and county orders not to arrest and jail people for non-violent offenses.
Every city in Solano County has experienced at least one sideshow — and often more — since the summer, according to dispatches and public records reviewed by Solano News Update. But Vallejo has experienced the most sideshow activity in part because of its proximity to the Bay Area and vast network of freeways.
On Sunday, officers scrambled to deal with one such event, calling in mutual assistance from the California Highway Patrol and other nearby agencies as nearly 100 cars assembled in town for an exhibition.
From 9 p.m. to midnight, the agency said it received more than 470 emergency calls, including a report of someone firing gunshots in an area with sideshow activity.
Other calls were not related to the sideshow, but the agency said it wasn’t able to adequately address those emergencies while it was trying to disperse the crowd because less than a dozen officers on duty at that time. Those unrelated calls for service included a domestic violence report, a sexual battery case and an argument that peaked when an individual pulled a gun on the other person, the agency said.
“I want to send a clear message that sideshows will not be tolerated by the City of Vallejo,” Williams said, adding that his agency and others were proactively working to determine how they can prevent sideshows from gathering in the first place.
That task may be difficult: Though the sideshows are organized online, they often involved people who live a significant distance from the city where they take place. Dispatches reviewed by Solano News Update revealed many of those who are cited and released live as far away as Sacramento, Stockton and San Jose. Each one of those cities have experienced sideshow activity as well, and when officers crack down on them, the participants simply move to another area.
In the past, the Vallejo Police Department said it would issue citations and impound vehicles of those who participate in sideshows. But doing so is easier said than done given the sheer number of people who participate in sideshows — sometimes as many as 200 at one time — leading to a situation where officers are often outnumbered.
A law enforcement official who spoke with Solano News Update on background said sideshow participants typically outnumber officers. Some are now devising a plan to request legislative action that would provide police additional enforcement mechanisms to adequately deal with the problem.
That request includes proposals that allow law enforcement officers to permanently seize a vehicle that participates in sideshow activity and a waiver to the state’s current cite-and-release rule that allows officers to book and jail individuals who are connected to street racing, one source said.
In August, the Vallejo Police Department said it may approach city officials with a request for “new legislation surrounding Vallejo municipal code ordinances” if sideshow activity didn’t ease up. On Monday, the agency didn’t say if it was still pursuing that option.
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