New Movie, Warm Weather May Be To Blame For Spike In Street Racing
CENTENNIAL, Colo. (CBS4) - Police from many different parts of the Denver metro area were out Sunday night keeping a close eye on the main roads and highways. They say either a new Hollywood hit movie, or warm weather is leading to a spike in street racing.
"We need to jump on this now," said Douglas County Sheriff's deputy Capt. Darren Weekly. "We need to get working on this now before somebody gets hurt."
Douglas County authorities said last weekend there were multiple races clogging highways. As a result of the activity, they decided to start working outside their department.
"I've been on the phone with commanders from other jurisdictions that have information that these groups might be meeting in other places tonight, so that doesn't change our response," Weekly told CBS4 on Sunday night. "We're still going to be working together and we're still going to be addressing this issue."
Officers from Jefferson, Arapahoe and Douglas Counties worked together over the weekend with the Colorado State Patrol in the effort.
Street racing has been fatal on Denver-area streets in the past, and officers don't want to see the same this summer.
"There's a danger to everybody in the community," Weekly said. "And quite frankly we have this unified effort together before somebody gets killed, and that's what we're worried about."
Notices about where the next street race will happen are usually posted to social media, according to police, but officers trying to deter the races say those plans are difficult to intercept because they can sometimes change in a split second.
Late Sunday night police thought they would find a large crowd of cars gathering for a street race in Centennial at the intersection of South Quebec Street and East County Line Road. Instead, they found an empty parking lot.
Because of the way these races happen, dozens if not hundreds of cars will drive very slowly on the highway, allowing a gap for drivers at the front to race in.
Weekly said they're going to see how the enforcement goes this summer, but they might call for more laws at the state level to punish the people at the back of the pack, since catching the actual racers at the front can be difficult.
