Hundreds of cars involved in illegal car meetups in Philadelphia, police say
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- Philadelphia police responded to 11 illegal car meetups in the city over the weekend, where large crowds and hundreds of vehicles took over intersections to do donuts and set off fireworks in the street.
Police said those meetups happened throughout the night from around 9:30 p.m. on Saturday until 4:30 a.m. Sunday in neighborhoods across the city, including Northeast Philadelphia, South Philadelphia, Center City and Spring Garden.
In an update Sunday afternoon, police provided more details about several of the incidents currently under investigation.
"This behavior will not be tolerated. We firmly believe that the actions last night were in retaliation of the police department's aggressive actions that we've been taking since Mayor Parker's administration began," Deputy Commissioner Francis Healy said in a press conference.
Healy continued, warning anyone involved in the car meetups last night that police already have their picture.
"If you think you got away last night, you didn't," he said. "So when you hear that banging on the door. It will be us. We're coming with search warrants and we're coming with arrest warrants."
The chaos started around 9:30 p.m. when police said about 50 cars were involved in a meetup on the 7400 block of Bustleton Avenue, where officers issued nine nuisance car citations and 15 citations to people watching them in the street. According to police, one driver tried to flee from the scene by driving directly at officers, "colliding with a civilian vehicle in the process." Police said they've identified the driver and a warrant has been issued for their arrest.
Ana Silva and Aylla Bianca were having a sleepover Saturday night when they both heard a commotion coming from the parking lot across the street on Bustleton Avenue.
"It was a lot of police cars, and we were like, 'What is happening over there?'" Bianca said.
Shortly before midnight, about 100 cars were "drifting and engaging in reckless driving" at 20th and Pattison Avenue near FDR Park.
Then at midnight, police said they witnessed a silver Nissan doing donuts and then driving toward a police car. The officer steered the patrol car out of the Nissan's way, followed it and saw it crash into a pole near Columbus Boulevard and Pattison Avenue.
According to police, after the crash, four men ran from the vehicle and the driver, Jhonny Martinez, 19, was arrested. Martinez, who's from Upper Darby, was charged with recklessly endangering another person and taken into custody, police said.
Around the same time, a video posted overnight showed cars driving in the middle of the road as fireworks exploded in the street at Delaware Avenue and Spring Garden Street. Police said no injuries were reported and that they were able to eventually disperse the crowd. The fire marshal was also called to that location to investigate.
Then around 1:30 a.m., about 100 cars took over 25th and Washington Avenue in South Philadelphia. Philadelphia Police Capt. Andrew DiSanto said at the same time cars were doing donuts and shooting off fireworks at that location, witnesses told investigators that a man in the area fired a gun twice.
DiSanto said no people or vehicles were hit by the gunshots, but officers did recover one live round and one shell casing in the area. An airsoft rifle was also found in a nearby garage. "Police were able to disperse the vehicles with no further incident," DiSanto said.
A woman told police she was also assaulted by a man and a woman in the area, who threw an orange traffic cone at her, knocking her to the ground.
An hour later, police said another meetup popped up in the area of 11th Street and Grange Avenue, where cars congregated in the area, again driving recklessly and engaging in disorderly behavior. Police said officers on the scene had trouble dispersing the crowd and were briefly surrounded.
Authorities were able to disperse the group once they were joined by more responding officers.
About an hour and a half later, another large crowd took over 23rd and Pennsylvania Avenue, near Eakins Oval and the Philadelphia Art Museum, again setting off fireworks while doing donuts. Several police vehicles were also damaged in this area.
At 4 a.m., police said more than 200 cars were drifting and drag racing at Island and Bartram avenues, where officers were reportedly attacked and a police car was damaged.
More police vehicles were damaged and officers were attacked just outside City Hall around 4:30 a.m., when more than 100 cars were reported drifting and setting rubbish fires, according to PPD. Video showed people and cars blocking traffic in Center City as one car did donuts around a group of people standing in an intersection.
Several police vehicles were also vandalized at this location, and a medic responded to City Hall after a woman's foot was reportedly run over by a car. Police said those officer vehicles had broken windshields and flat tires.
Philadelphia Police said that the department assigned "dozens of officers" to address the illegal meetups over the weekend, but noted that "unfortunately, law enforcement cannot prevent all of them, and even when we have the information, safely stopping the events in their tracks is not immediately feasible due to risks to officer and citizen safety."
Roosevelt Poplar, president of Philadelphia's Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 5, said they need more help, which means more personnel.
"The city of Philadelphia Police Department is at an all-time low in manpower," Poplar said. "So any help we can get with that — we desperately need police officers out there."
PPD said investigators will use the "considerable amount of evidence" collected from these incidents, including cameras, to make arrests. Authorities believe the incidents were coordinated.
Anyone with information is asked to contact police at (215) 686-TIPS (8477).