When Thomas Lawson pulled up at a Sunday night car meet in northwest Harris County, it felt like a bomb had just gone off. People were yelling and running. Dust hung in the air. Black tire marks pointed like arrows to a scene of wreckage.
Lawson, a 30-year-old certified nursing assistant, had shown up to promote his car wrapping business and celebrate his birthday with friends. Instead, his medical training kicked in. He left his car running and rushed to the scene. Seconds had passed since a yellow Chevrolet Camaro — speeding more than 100 mph — smashed into a Chevrolet Malibu, which slammed into bystanders. Three bodies lay in the roadway. Two boys, still breathing, were laid out next to each other with bent limbs, Lawson said. Another man appeared to be dead.
“Keep breathing, I know it’s hurting,” Lawson said to the unconscious children while he helped paramedics. He slipped a pair of cowboy boots off the younger boy’s feet. “I don’t know if you can hear me, but listen to my voice. Listen to my voice.”
Helicopters whisked the children, identified as brothers DeCarerick Kennedy, 16, and Faybian Hoisington, 14, to a hospital, where they died. The third victim, Roger Glover, 35, was a tourist from New Jersey. All three had stopped at the parking lot along the U.S. 290 feeder road near West Little York Road to check out the decked-out cars. They were killed when the 22-year-old Camaro driver decided to pull a dangerous “fly-by” stunt as the car meet devolved into a more dangerous street takeover, authorities said.
The crash was the deadliest incident since street takeovers and racing have gained popularity across the Houston area in recent years. The pandemic has only exacerbated the problem, which Sheriff Ed Gonzalez referred to as an “epidemic.” The deaths, which mark the worst-case outcome that authorities have long feared, have prompted law enforcement, family members and car club members alike to call for a renewed crackdown.
“It needs to stop,” said Lawson, a car enthusiast who drives a Dodge Charger Scat Pack. “That was the last straw right there.”
Task force cracking down, officials warn
Following the deadly crash, authorities have pledged to re-up their efforts to track down violators, arrest people and impound cars at street takeover events, said Teare, head of the agency’s vehicular crimes division.
Last March, the Houston Police Department, Harris County Sheriff’s Office, Texas Department of Public Safety and other area agencies announced a joint strike team tasked with tackling the issue. Soon after, however, pandemic restrictions may have hindered their efforts while emboldening people with lots of free time to perform stunts in the near-empty streets.
The task force could not provide the Chronicle with comprehensive statistics, but intermittent reports from authorities, interviews with law enforcement, media reports and an abundance of social media accounts paint a picture of an active street takeover scene across Harris County and Houston.
The organized group gatherings typically entail drivers blocking off an intersection, parking lot or stretch of highway to perform stunts, doughnuts and race at high speeds in front of an audience with their phones out filming.
During the first weekend in February, for example, officers arrested 15 people, cited more than 100 others and impounded an undisclosed number of cars during takeover busts, Chief Art Acevedo said in a news briefing earlier this month. Police officials were unable to provide names or more details into the circumstances of those arrests, with one spokesperson citing an ongoing investigation.
Police were limited in their ability to arrest people for lower-level offenses last year due to pandemic jail restrictions, Acevedo said. Those arrests “are now happening,” he said. “We continue to aggressively go after this.”
Manslaughter charges have been filed against Andrew Mock in the Feb. 21, 2021, death of at least two bystanders killed after being hit by a crashed vehicle at a northwest Harris County car meet.
Photo courtesy of Capt. Daniel Arizpe, PIO/Cy-Fair Fire DepartmentLast year, the joint task force made 22 arrests between Nov. 29 and Dec. 31 for evading, reckless driving, weapon carry and other charges, according to preliminary information provided by Houston police. Of those arrests, four were for evading in a motor vehicle, 11 for reckless driving, three for unlawful weapon carry, three for driving with a suspended license and one for failing to stop and give information, according to police.
Additionally during that period, law enforcement recorded more than 1,600 moving and non-moving traffic violations — some committed by the same person — stemming from street takeovers.
Last March, authorities said the takeover task force had by then arrested 71 people, more than 40 of them in February alone. One weekend last October, Captain Tommy Shelton of the Harris County Sheriff’s Office reported that the multi-agency team made 18 arrests on suspicion of crimes like racing, reckless driving, driving while intoxicated and unlawful carrying of a weapon.
Poor visibility, alcohol, firearms and young inexperienced drivers seeking social media stardom create a “toxic mix,” Shelton said.
The incidents are often fluid, Shelton said, with drivers taking off before police respond to the scene, only to converge at a different location to continue pulling stunts. Cars often cross jurisdictional lines, prompting the need for communication among the agencies involved in the joint initiative. The drivers prefer high quality, smooth concrete thoroughfares with easy access from feeder roads, Shelton said, but “it happens everywhere.”
“It’s lawless activity. It’s wreaking havoc on the public,” said Shelton, a District 4 patrol captain. “It’s not uncommon for us to find weapons on the drivers or even the people there — they like to shoot them in the air. And you got underage drinking going on, and then you got this car that’s slinging in the pit, and then next thing you know somebody could be injured or killed — and it does happen.”
A woman was killed last September when a driver doing doughnuts in the intersection at Goodhope and Scott Streets lost control and hit her, according to Houston police. The driver fled and has not been apprehended, police said. It was not known if the driver was part of an organized takeover.
That same month, a 36-year-old father on his way to work was killed in a crash in the 12400 block of Cutten Road that authorities attributed to drag racing, sheriff’s officials said. The driver, 30-year-old Jarrod Mikel, was charged with racing on a highway and causing serious bodily injury. An arraignment is scheduled for April 30.
A ‘subculture’ is born
With hundreds of miles of highways looping the city, Houston’s car culture has thrived for decades. Some car clubs parade to Galveston, other drivers park their decadent rides to mingle with fellow auto enthusiasts. Many clubs are involved in helping their communities.
But in the wake of a brazen, headline-grabbing incident in 2018, Teare believes a subculture was born.
On a weekend afternoon in December of that year, members affiliated with a car club known as Lonestar Slabs brought traffic to a halt on Interstate 45 toward downtown. They parked their candy-colored custom rides and posed for photos under the iconic railroad overpass then was once marked with the words: “Be Someone.” Nearly a dozen drivers were charged with misdemeanor crimes as authorities fumed, and some of the same men have since been charged in connection with other street takeovers.
“A subculture has evolved that doesn’t think it’s enough to sit in a parking lot with your hood open,” Teare continued. “What’s evolved is getting out and seeing how outrageous your behavior can be on the roads.”
A recent incident highlights the bold, dangerous nature of such gatherings.
A couple was returning home from a game night with friends in late January when they inadvertently stumbled upon a street takeover less than a block from their apartment. Drivers slowed and parked around them, blocking the uninvolved couple from leaving the fray as two drivers spun in circles at the intersection of Enclave Parkway and Forkland Drive in west Houston. The Chronicle agreed not to identify the victims due to their safety concerns.
When someone thought the woman was calling 911, she said people surrounded and banged on the car, shouted and broke the windshield. Eventually, her fiance stepped on the gas and sped off. An unknown person fired two shots in the direction of the fleeing car. One bullet struck their trunk without causing injury, according to a video of the encounter that blew up online.
“We have no idea where that second bullet went,” the woman said. “It could’ve ended up in one of his friends, in another vehicle — I mean it could have ended up anywhere and he had no regard for life.”
Some participants have since reached out to apologize to the woman and said they were angry at the shooter for his reckless behavior.
A police spokesperson said the shooting remains under investigation and no suspect has been identified.
Families, car community mourn for victims
Among the brightly-colored carnations and roses, some mourners have left packaged toy cars at the site of the deadly Feb. 21 crash. In the feeder road and neighboring parking lot, where the northwest Harris County car meet was held, blackened remnants of recent doughnuts and joy rides remain.
Sherkeitha Kennedy, whose two eldest sons were among those killed, said her boys loved to collect the minature cars. The grieving mother addressed her sons’ deaths recently at St. Paul Baptist Church in Brookshire, where friends and family greeted her with a prayer circle.
“They always helped me around,” Kennedy cried. “I’m going to miss them coming out of the car with the groceries — I’m going to miss everything about them.”
The teens jumped at the opportunity to see the flashy rides parked about a block from their grandmother’s house. She suspects her boys never had the chance to move out of the way of the incoming car.
Kennedy slammed the driver’s so-called fly-by stunt as “irresponsible illegal racing” and called on law enforcement to crack down on the drivers.
The driver, Andrew Mock, has been charged with two counts of manslaughter and one count of aggravated assault. His bond was set at a combined $80,000 for the three charges. The Magnolia man bonded out of jail Thursday under the conditions that he surrender his driver’s license, passport and submit to electronic monitoring.
Sherkeitha Kennedy, center, is surrounded by family and friends in a prayer circle before a press conference at St. Paul Baptist Church, 1335 Waller St., Tuesday, Feb. 23, 2021 in Brookshire. DeCarerick Kennedy, 16, and his brother Faybian Hoisington, 14, the sons of Sherkeitha Kennedy were killed Feb. 21, 2021 during a Harris County car meet.
Melissa Phillip, Houston Chronicle / Staff photographerHis prized Camaro was towed to a county storage lot where it remains under an investigative hold, officials said.
Mock declined to comment on Thursday when reached at his home. A neighbor, Amparo Ramirez, said she often saw him working on the Camaro and driving back and forth on the street, sometimes fast. She recently told her husband, “This guy is going to have an accident because he’s always driving so fast.”
In the wake of the crash, some members of Houston’s car club community have shunned street takeovers and illicit racing, and worry they will be unfairly lumped in with the more dangerous stunt groups.
A wave of car club leaders and organizers have spoken up to rebuke the reckless behavior, remind their members to cut out the dangerous stunts, and express sympathy in the wake of the deadly crash, said Antonio Johnson, president of Street Legends car club.
His group is like a family that helps the community, said Johnson, who drives an SS Camaro. They gather for park-and-chill events, but do not engage in street takeovers or racing on highways.
“It’s our get away from our everyday life and everyday troubles,” he said. About the dangerous stunts, he said, “I’ve talked to everybody. I’ve made it clear we don’t want to see anything like that.”
The Houston car community organized a Friday meet-up in East Downtown where they will raise money for the families of the victims.
“We’re praying for the family,” Johnson said. “Nobody wants to see stuff like that happen.”
anna.bauman@chron.com
nicole.hensley@chron.com
"street" - Google News
February 26, 2021 at 07:21AM
https://ift.tt/3sw66tQ
In wake of deadly crash, Houston has a new 'epidemic': street takeovers - Houston Chronicle
"street" - Google News
https://ift.tt/2Ql4mmJ
Shoes Man Tutorial
Pos News Update
Meme Update
Korean Entertainment News
Japan News Update
No comments:
Post a Comment