Police On The Lookout For Dallas Street Racers
Residents of one Dallas neighborhood slept more peacefully after police spent the weekend watching a grocery parking lot on Saturday and Sunday night in an effort to deter street racing.
NBCDFW reports that the strategy by the Dallas Police Department worked to shut down illegal street stunts in a neighborhood on 7300 block of Gaston Avenue near Garland Road.
According to David Kirk, owner of the White Rock Alehouse and Brewery located in the shopping center, these illegal gatherings involving street racing and dangerous stunts began in early August of this year.
“They show up in a hurry, spinning donuts around the streetlights, smacking into a car or two,” he said.
Kirk then told NBCDFW’s Diana Zoga that as quickly as they appear, they disappear again to do the same in other areas of the city. “They’ll be up at some other intersection, if they get shut down, hey, it’ll continue to go on. It will be a real challenge for police.”
In the past, residents and business owners told NBC that they had to wait as long as 45 minutes for police to show up and disperse the street racers and the crowds that gather to watch.
As a temporary measure, the Dallas Police Department parked its marked RV in the lot and had two police cruisers with two officers. The Northeast Division of the Dallas Police Department also sent out a tweet warning would-be street racers that the lot was under video surveillance and that police would be there to arrest street racers if they showed up.
Dallas City Council member Paula Blackmon, who is in charge of the district where the parking lot is located, said that the problem is, “Unacceptable.” She hopes that this can be done in other areas where street racing incidents often occur.
While police presence around the parking lots and intersections helps to deter the problem, it is just a temporary solution. Blackmon says that as a deterrent, property owners may need to install medians, speed bumps, and other measures to stop the problem.
