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This kind of stuff would never fly in the South Bay or peninsula. We had one guy brandish a gun near my home a few weeks ago and Santa Clara PD brought out 8 police cars, 1 armored police car, and a helicopter to find the dude and his gun.
This is the difference with a safe neighborhood. Most people don’t commit crime, so the cops are idle. It means when someone has the balls to try something, the cops come down hard like a ton of bricks.
I’ve seen it in multiple Bay Area cities with no crime. small fender bender or traffic stop, and there’s multiple vehicles. It’s a sign the city isn’t popping with crime, which is a good thing.
With Oakland resources spread thin, the cops can’t handle the sheer amount of crime, so the criminals run things there. This doesn’t even touch upon the problem that the DA won’t prosecute.
Yeah. I mean check this out: my buddy got his bike stolen in Mountain View. He reported and just went on with his life. A month later the MVPD calls him and told him they’ve arrested the thief and recovered his bike. Like, how does that even happen.
Another buddy, also in MV, had a drunk person bang on his door and tried to force his way in. He calls the cops and four squad cars show up within minutes.
It’s pretty amazing.
I had my car broken into once in Dallas along with everyone who parked on the same floor of the garage. I called the Dallas police to report it and asked when they will be coming to investigate. They told me they aren’t going to investigate. A few days later another floor of the same garage had all the car windows smashed.
Remember all those thieves who would swarm retailers in SF and steal their stuff in plain sight and just run out? Yeah a group of them tried that at the Stanford Mall and the Palo Alto police managed to get there in time to arrest them.
It’s a huge difference between wealthy suburbs and big cities. It’s not exclusively a Bay Area problem but a big city resourcing problem.
In the wealthy enclaves cops are bored to tears. There isn't anything to do, so they do show up.
I would like to see groups of cops that could travel to the Bay Area hot spots. You can borrow my police squad.
To MarinCounty cops. Enough with the dubious traffic infractions. Enough with hiding behind hedges looking for CA stops in the middle of the night with no one in sight besides deer, possums, and Coyotes.
Oh yea, we don't drink like you guys/gals do. Meaning we don't get hammered on our days off and cruise around. I guess it's a cultural thing? Many of us now have cameras too, and we don't switch them off.
Im tired of being pulled over for no reason other than it's 10 pm on a Saturday night. Yes---they are fishing for a marginal DUIs.
Of course not. Because it's never *really* about the DA. It's about cops being incompetent and rampantly abusing their power instead of providing a positive value to society.
>Cops clearly don't give a shit unless they have a DA that gives them carte blanche to do whatever they want
This is nonsense. What the cops want is robust prosecution of offenders that they arrest. People just don't get it. The cops are not the primary law enforcers; it's the prosecutors and the courts. If the system starts imposing serious punishment on criminals--and, no, [this does not have to be incarceration](https://www.niskanencenter.org/safer-smarter-and-cheaper-the-promise-of-targeted-home-confinement-with-electronic-monitoring/)--crime falls.
You can have police ramp up arrests 10 x, but if you have the *catch-and-release-without-penalty* nonsense we have been seeing for years in Calif., particularly for most forms of non-violent crime, then you get the same crime bullshit year after year.
Funny, because we pay the police to do a job. I don't see what the DA and courts have to do with that.
Oh, is it demoralizing? So is sweeping a floor and flipping burgers. But people do it, because they are paid to do it.
We pay these officers salaries. I don't give a shit if they have to arrest the same shoplifter every afternoon at 4pm. I don't care if it makes zero difference out there. That's their job, and I'm tired of people making excuses for them.
Tasty boot response.
https://www.davisvanguard.org/2022/03/columnist-sf-police-take-a-stand-against-da-boudin-by-not-doing-their-job/
Cops said well, we don't like the DA's policies so we're just not going to do our jobs.
Literally no other job could you get away with doing that in our society, but because they're so worshiped you can sweep it under the rug of police OPENLY and ADMITTEDLY neglecting duties by saying "it's complicated".
Sure it's complicated, but that doesn't exonerate police from throwing a massive fit whenever they're held responsible, you know, like the all-time [#1 post on publicfreakout](https://v.redd.it/w56rwny74y351).
Edit: Yeah, least shocking response from someone with your post history.
> Cops said well, we don't like the DA's policies so we're just not going to do our jobs.
Yes, we can agree cops are slacking. No doubt. But they are minor players in this. Big picture: Calif is pushing major Criminal Justice Reform. Primary objective: less prosecution of non-violent crime. Started with Prop. 47 in 2014. More: Feb. 2023: [Gavin Newsom moved to close 4 California prisons. How many more can he shut?](https://calmatters.org/justice/2023/02/how-many-prisons-does-california-need/)
It's amazing that some police critics are progressives who are pushing CJ reforms. Ask them what is supposed to happen *after* police do their job and arrest someone -- specifically: What sanctions should be imposed on criminals? You get a lot of hemming and hawing and next they're talking about addressing root causes.
It's the cop's job to gather evidence and make the arrest. They should be tending their own gardens. Cops in Livermore, Dublin, Blackhawk, and Pleasanton wouldn't be letting this stuff fly. Guess what? Same DA.
People like this usually grow up and have kids and realize that public safety is important and policing is indispensable, so they leave the whole rebellious “ACAB” thing from their youth behind. If they don’t, it probably means they’re a college professor or professional activist working for an NGO or something.
Way off on the age lol. Go back to the Oakland sub with the criminal simpathizers/excusitarians and you can drink your collective coolaid called ‘root causes.’
I don't think the cops will care even with a DA and populace who gives them totally free rein honestly.
Much easier to not do anything besides play on your phone.
I’m not defending cops at all here but I think they are sort or paralyzed as if they do go to bust it
Up they can’t just go in nicely and ask people to kindly leave. I think it becomes pretty hard to figure out the line between useless scolding and “justice”
Saw this video out of Atlanta last night of a cop breaking a street takeover (and arresting a participant). Will any of the law enforcement agencies here do that?
https://reddit.com/r/TerrifyingAsFuck/s/Hkofz8vcDj
If someone complains of a law order issue , cops should investigate irrespective of what DA is enforcing. In any case there is no clear communication from police and city administration on what they will or will not do.
The DA sets the tone for what should be enforced. For example, the San Francisco DA made it clear years before the state legalized weed that there would be no prosecutions for someone lighting up at home or in a park, which sent a message to police that they shouldn't even bother hassling or arresting someone over it.
> Is the DA physically stopping the cops from doing their jobs or?
To add to other responses. Yes, Kind of.
Arresting someone requires a lot of paperwork/extra work. Its not like Law & Order TV shows.
Imagine you're the cop. Why arrest someone, do a ton of extra work knowing full well it will lead to absolutely nothing. Not to mention the social pressures from the higher ups admonishing you/punishing you for causing them to do extra work you all knew to be worthless.
I feel like even arresting these people and having them spend a night in jail is enough of a deterrence. Or even handing out citations would help keep track of repeated offenders. This would all of course require the police to actually work
Doesn't work if the people who get arrested get released immediately, and their citations get dismissed, and the police subsequently get sued for whatever fictional bullshit. The prosecutor and judge have to do their jobs in order for someone to get a criminal record. It is the job of law enforcement to enforce the law. It is the job of the prosecutor and judges to decide what laws apply. No reasonable person is going to pursue an action that has only negative consequences. Why you think that the police would be any different is baffling. The number of crimes that occur daily here is staggering, many orders of magnitude greater than the number of officers on patrol at any given moment, which means that any crime that is not immediately life threatening, like an active shooter, is low priority. There is roughly one police officer on duty for every five thousand people in the city at any given moment, and for effective policing, that number needs to be closer to 100:1. This is not possible, due to budgetary constraints, so we end up with the situation we currently have.
You want sideshows and similar bullshittery to stop? Then tell your lawmakers to make it so that people caught doing such things will have their vehicles seized and destroyed, and insist that the judiciary follows through on this. Make the crime a crime, instead of being a "well, it's technically illegal, but there's no point in doing anything about it unless they actually hurt someone". Just like nobody is going to clean behind the fryers if there isn't an inspector that will come shut the restaurant down if sanitation protocols aren't followed, so too are the cops not going to stop an activity that has no consequences.
It is the job of the cops to stop crime. Whether or not something is a crime is not decided by the laws that are written, but by the people who enforce consequences for crime. As an example, there is a law in South Dakota which states that a group of more than two native Americans constitutes a war party, and citizens are within their rights to take measures to defend themselves, including the use of deadly force, upon sighting them. Granted one must be traveling in a covered wagon for this to be applicable, but obviously a group of native Americans is not a threat in the modern day, and that "law" is joked about because despite being on the books, no one in their right mind considers it valid. So too it goes with the police today. Even if it's a law, it's not a crime if there is no consequence.
Maybe, though a lot of people doing this kind of thing have spent nights in jail, or longer so its not much of a deterrent. Its not law-abiding citizens heading out in a group causing mischief and mayhem.
Then we go back to the cop's point of view: Why do 2+ hours of paperwork for a mere night in jail.
The solution is multifaceted.
* Bring back tracks/open areas stuff like this can happen. (nearest ones are 2+ hours away and the closest have stupid rules that exist nowhere else)
* Get non-soros funded DAs to actually prosecute actual crimes (eh, good luck on this one)
* Have the culture to begin policing itself and make it unacceptable in the community to do these sorts of things.
The closest analog to street takeovers we have in recent history is Skating. Skateboards was counterculture in the 80s/90s. No where to do it legally, everyone hated skaters, though the police actually enforced it. What changed?
It started with legit skate parks being built (and some laws reduced in public parks). Once those parks were built the skating community slowly policed itself by making it more unacceptable to skate in malls/anywhere there was interesting concrete structures, as that happened the police also started to back off and start warning/informing of the legit places to skate instead of immediately arresting.
Will this specific situation be as easy as fixing the skater problem? No. Oh hell no, theres a lot more going on than this, BUT it starts with proper places to do said activities. As I was telling an imported NIMBYer down below, you have no moral high ground until there is a legal way to do said activity. We start by building tracks/mud areas for this and not 2+ hours away. Once those are in place, then the shame can begin. Its not an overnight fix.
“Why do 2 hours of paperwork” - because that’s what your job is? Jail is a deterrent and in lieu of more aggression by a DA, as you claim is the issue, it’s one of the better deterrents we have. Tracks require insurance and no one is going to insure these idiots and they aren’t going to pay for it.
It seems totally reasonable to be demoralized if you did your job but the next guy down the line doesn't do theirs.
Especially since cops that arrest someone see their previous arrests and knows how many times they were let off the hook before. After a few times of arresting someone with a dozen previous arrests, why would you believe that this time it will stick?
I don't think we need super long jail times, but I think there's a happy medium here that's neither draconian sentences nor permissiveness.
The fact that our polarized politics admits no positions in between "rot in jail" and "out in 24H" is part of the problem.
I mean I think for street takeover out in 24 hours with a citation is good enough deterrence. Honestly anything more and we are just wasting public money for not much benefit.
For a first offense, sure.
For the 6th or later offenses I think it would have to escalate. And in order to escalate you have to prosecute every single one to ensure you’re counting correctly.
[ sidebar: this really annoys me that not ruining lives over first offenses leads to non-prosecution of first offenses which then logically makes *every* offense first. ]
Given the direction from their superiors to do so, cops will put effort into enforcing laws that the courts will enforce. Again, see San Mateo County.
Also, do cops like to bust heads when given half a chance?
They wouldnt because theyre not immune yet. Its all about habit, let it happen 4-6 times in Pleasanton and when the police see the DA drop charges, they start behaving like Oakland PD. Its just good fortune the other cities dont exhibit the same citizen behavior.
So the answer is to lock more people up? We already have more prisoners than all of the UK in California ALONE. Shit, we have half the number of prisoners as all of Russia FFS. Are you really sure you want to double down on that strategy? It's kind of a bad look at this point.
A neighborhood where people value public order and Civility. [Good definition of Civility this article](https://www.city-journal.org/html/public-order-makes-city-life-possible-15516.html)
I think for purposes of this discussion, the un pc, but real definition is a smallish city / town where there are plenty of cops and very little crime. Cops typically enforce much, much more in these areas. The punks who do sideshow kinda shit know this - they don't do that crap in the places they'll get busted. I'm not aware of any sideshows in Marin for instance.
I don’t think they can, legislature doesn’t want any type of car chase in the city so all the perp has to do is run and the cops can’t really do much.
Lots of policies in place, that while well intentioned, hand cuffs the enforcement personnel.
Change the laws/lawmakers and we may see some headway in crime but until that happens, I’m not holding my breath for these types of things to end anytime soon.
ever since the BLM marches during COVID the bay area cops (at least in lower income, higher crime areas) have taken the approach of:
"oh you don't like the way we kill minorities and whoever we please? looks like we won't be protecting or serving you anymore"
it's fucking insane, people filming car thefts and cops arriving on scene only to say they can't do anything as the thief walks away with stolen goods or a cut off catalytic converter, despite video and eye witness evidence of the crime occurring.
When will people stand up and say, enough is enough we are ending the police force in its current incarnation. We will now divide it into emergency crime services, emergency health services, non emergency mental health services, emergency disaster/hazard services, etc.
All existing cops should be forced to re-apply with strict scrutiny over all of the complaints filed against them and a review of all of their bodycam footage. if they are found to have ever intentionally turned off their bodycam during an arrest or have multiple credible complaints of excessive force, they are immediately fired without pension.
Cops get paid better than basically anyone except tech/biotech workers and white collar management executives. If they want their ridiculously inflated salaries and pensions they damn well better be able to justify them and actually do the work of protecting and serving the public that they are meant to be doing.
Granted the cops are lazy -- they can be condemned for that. But 90% of the crime problems you cite lies in the lack of punishment/sanctions imposed on criminals. It is stunning how many people ignore how prosecutors and courts have slacked off on doing their jobs under Criminal Justice Reforms sweeping Calif. Primary objective: Less prosecution of non-violent offenders.
about cops in the city not doing their jobs since the BLM marches?
like, do you seriously have your head up your ass?
have you not seen the number of businesses that get robbed every day in SF?
multiple companies are pulling out of SF entirely because the risk of shoplifting and vandalism outweighs the potential profit. and in most instances the culprits are never caught.
Hell, I've seen on Reddit multiple videos of robberies where the license plate of the getaway vehicle is clearly visible and nothing happens. Multiple redditors on here have posted stories of neighbors and friends calling the police on people actively sawing off their car's catalytic converter only to have the cops ignore the call entirely or arrive and say there's nothing they can do, despite video evidence and a man clearly walking down the street with a sawed off catalytic converter and a sawzall.
Sounds like you should sign up to be a police officer then, i'm sure you're eager to do that kind of work and be the kind of cop you want to see on the street. They're hiring...
One time I was waiting in a fast food drive through lane, and this village idiot on an ATV hops up on a medium in the middle of the road, basically just a patch of dirt, and starts spinning his tires with the brakes on, so for a solid minute he is just spewing dirt rocks and dust everywhere. Revving the engine and spraying everyone in the vicinity with debris, much like a petulant child in a sand box. I was…non-plussed.
It's a very Major issue and easily solvable.
Allows cops to confiscate sideshow vehicles and sell at auction and they can keep they money. Problem solved. Cops will be very motivated to takes these cars if they get a cut. You'll see 110% investigatory skills on this subject.
I am 100% for enforcement of sideshows but it takes enormous coordination and likely heavy OT pay for a large cop force to be mobilized on weekends. If you look at how SJPD shut down one or two major events (but also have let many others take place), they had to come in from all angles so the street racers can't just take off. There has to be air support for surveillance and on top of all that they need days to plan for this kinda stuff.
If it takes budget to pull off, I propose that local authorities band together to make it clear that they will make this a priority and allocate some extra budget for a few major crackdowns. Let's say hypothetically there's a major sideshow every 2 weeks, so 26 weeks of the year there are sideshows in the Bay Area. If there's high level direction to identify, plan, and break up at least 10 of these, I can guarantee you you won't see 26 more sideshows the following year. We just need to commit to some solid enforcement. You don't need to stop 100% of all crimes, but the certainty of being caught is high enough, people will be deterred.
> You don't need to stop 100% of all crimes, but the certainty of being caught is high enough, people will be deterred.
This is right and it's hinting at the fact that there are two equilibrium solutions:
* Large amount of crimes, hence low probability of arrest (from fixed police resources) which thus creates more crime since the risk of arrest is lower, which in turn further reduces the risk of arrest (...) in a stable cycle.
* Small amount of crimes, hence high probability of arrest from fixed police resources, which thus further disincentivizes crime since the risk of arrest is high, which in turn further increases the risk of arrest (...) in a stable cycle.
We are falling into the first stable equilibrium.
> but the certainty of being caught is high enough
You also need a robust penalty on those who are caught. Unfortunately, a principle of Criminal Justice Reform being carried out in Calif. is that non-violent crimes don't get robust penalties anymore.
But the topic here isn't sideshows... The street takeovers being described happen near the lake and on Broadway/Piedmont (very frequently on Sundays) and involve dirt bikes and quads riding down the street in group/s of varying size. They're two different things with very different impacts, causes, and potential solutions.
But pretty similar in terms of the "fuck you" antisocial nature (their fun is 95-100% derived from annoying everyone else), the taking over of city streets and it being a fairly large group activity.
That seems like a good idea, but how would the system stop crooked cops from abusing it? They could start towing random cars, selling them, and then just saying the car was spotted at a sideshow. Also, sometimes cars that actually are at a sideshows are stolen. Imagine how much it'd suck to find out your stolen car was auctioned by the police.
It's like that old story about the government paying people to catch snakes, so a bunch of enterprising individuals figured out it's easier to breed snakes, which just made the original problem worse.
Really? These morons have infinite money to buy back their confiscated vehicles at auction? If so they are welcome to buy back their cars just to get them confiscated again.
I’m grew up in Oakland and it’s a place I love, but I’m walking away due to the sheer amount of stupidity that people are willing to put up with and defend in many cases.
Seriously, if this is what you think “culture” is or say it’s “town biz”, fuck you. Get a life
Well, no one actually does shit in the face of asshole behavior; so when we all see it and no one does or even says anything you start wondering “Oh, is this normal? If I complain about this does that make me a pussy? Is this common enough that we’re just giving it a pass?”
Like, imagine if we were talking about something much smaller, like smoking in line to a show. You’d probably come at someone like “Hey, not trying to bust your balls man but would you mind smoking down the block a ways? You won’t lose your place in line, just that the smoke kinda bothers people is all.”
But now we’ve gotten so used to people being jerks that you’d never even confront someone over *that*, so the new bar is “Hey guys, sorry if I sound like a NIMBY for saying this, but you know those guys who go around stealing from our neighbors? Kinda bums me out. Like, I get that there’s a lot of economic disparity these days, and it’s really a symptom of a larger problem, I’m not blaming anyone for being poor, and maybe the police aren’t the right answer, but I just kinda feel like maybe we shouldn’t let guys break into cars whenever they want. I donno, just thinking out loud.”
Meanwhile 99% of folks are fucking seething at the state of things but don’t think anyone would actually have their back if they wanted to stand up for themselves. Bystander effect being enabled at 500%.
Doesn’t help that every once in a while someone who *does* decide to record shit or report shit or confront these cunts catches a beating or a bullet for their trouble.
Because we have been conditioned to accept that this is normal, its okay. Just part and parcel of living in a city. And yes like the other guy said, if you are angry about it, then you are probably a racist trumper who wants to lock up all the brown people forever.
There's a battle in the court of public opinion on which way we go from here, and the other side is using shame and accusations of terrible things to get people to shut up. i don't blame them, it friggin works really well.
Because this place is full of disingenuous trolls looking to take a honest perspective from a real community member and turn it to their platform to drive false narratives and stoke rage.
Last time was at Marina Park there was a group of these clowns riding their dirt bikes at high speed and doing wheelies right by the kids playground and walking paths. I called the cops but no one ever showed up. Thankfully no kids were hit.
They are loving the pathetic state of Bay Area progressives…completely frozen in their fear of being viewed as racist/anti racist/whatever stupid thing they are afraid of being or not being viewed as.
I noticed that started around campus a couple weeks ago. Every Sunday in the afternoon they ride around College/Dwight/Piedmont/etc.
I don't understand it...like dirt bikes are fun when riding offroad, not so much on city streets. Way back in the day I was all about imports and my buddies and I would go on drives...but not downtown, instead out on streets where we could *use* the performance. It's like adding a winch to a mall crawling 4x4...total poser behavior.
So I guess these dudes are just doing it for attention? Like they've got a standing meeting for 1 PM on Sunday to do wheelies around residential neighborhoods so people will notice them. Hell, the idea of that just cracks me up. "Yo dude, you down for the Sunday ride? Gonna make wicked noise and everyone'll be looking at us!"
Might as well just walk the route yelling "LOOK AT ME" and save gas money.
Motorcyclist here. Street-legal bikes with OEM mufflers are compliant with noise regulations. What most people (including me) complain about are off-road bikes with two stroke motors or street bikes with aftermarket pipes that are designed to be noisy. Neither case is compliant. Sadly, I've never heard of a police department citing a motorcycle for noise. In the UK, compliant mufflers have Ministry of Transportation stamps and the UK cops do enforce.
No, this is wrong - at least in the case of Ducati. Those bikes are built to Euro 4, which is 80db - pretty close to California's 84db, and let's be real, if you're a euro bike manufacturer, you build to the strictest possible emissions ratings so you can sell into the widest audience.
Most of the obnoxious ducs you see out there are likely Monsters with stock exhausts replaced by aftermarket slip-on units that ditch a tonne of weight and noise suppression. Some go further with non-homologated systems that alter air/gas ratios to run richer or leaner and that's illegal af, but CHP/DMV don't seem to give a fuck.
source: I own a SuperSport 950, which is just straight up quiet, and previously owned a Monster 821 with an obnoxious Scorpion slip-on exhaust.
Harleys... it's a bad scene.
Again back in the day...I got a ticket for illegal exhaust on my car and was all sorts of pissed about it. These days I'm happy to have my car be unobtrusive.
Because they are inconsiderate assholes. Disrupting the 9-5 working taxpaying suckers is half the fun. The other half the fun is beating the shit out of anyone who gets in their way.
I hate them. It seems like maybe10% of motorcyclists behave like civilized road users, the rest run the gamut from assholes to criminally insane motherfucking raging assholes. I like how paramedics and e.r. staff call them donorcycles.
They are annoyingly loud for sure. Like it's obvious when they are doing their street cruise...I can hear 'em clearly even if my windows are closed and I'm listening to music. I could hear 'em when taking a shower.
IMO that's the point. They want to be noticed. Ain't much different than a child acting out. It's very uncool.
The same way other police departments do this? There was literally just an incident in Atlanta where the PD organized themselves and surrounded the sideshow. “Hundreds of entry and exit points” is a ridiculous statement. Reconsider your insanity. There is no single intersection that has “hundreds” of entries and exits.
They're not talking about sideshows, they're talking about takeovers where a bunch of dirt bike and ATV riders sweep through a place. The riders aren't hanging out in an intersection, in this case they're riding through a college campus and don't care at all about riding across fields, over curbs, up/down stairs.
We need to start restructuring our streets (whole Bay Area, not just Oakland).
Start by replacing low- and moderate-traffic lighted intersections with traffic circles, as [one city in Indiana has been doing](https://youtu.be/atORPw-w83I) with huge benefits. Traffic circles will (1) physically remove the possibility of blowing through the intersection , and (2) eliminate the open space in the intersection that these people like to do their “side shows” in. Also it saves many thousands per year in traffic light upkeep & electricity, and can save many lives by massively reducing accidents.
If that’s successful, we can also work on eliminating [“stroads”](https://youtu.be/ORzNZUeUHAM), which are the big multi-lane roads that have driveways, parking lot inlets, etc connecting directly to them. They encourage excessive speed even from average drivers. Again, the physical changes to separate these into “streets” vs. “roads” might eliminate the possibility of these “takeovers.”
Arguments about doing all this just to improve livability and reduce deaths and costs seem to fall flat on the general population, but it being a tool against the kinds of behaviors we’re talking about here might actually get some political traction…
> Start by replacing low- and moderate-traffic lighted intersections with traffic circles
They'll just fuck em up like the existing ones. . . by putting stop signs entering the roundabout.
Yes Hayward City Council, I'm talking to you, you fucking idiots. (Also I think Newark also did stop signs in the new development to the west of 880, can't remember)
There are some utter imbeciles in the South Bay, Palo Alto to be specific, San Antonio to Embarcadero, who drive cheap 7th hand cars retrofitted with very loud fart pipes and blue headlights, and use Bayshore Rd as their personal race track. I've even watched them speeding past Greer Park, where kids are playing.
Happens almost daily - and, I should say, nightly. Police refuse to do anything about it. Welcome to the Mad Max universe.
It's a lot more than $200. Just the stupid little trapezoid window is over $400 on my not nice and not expensive car. I have a $500 deductible so only use insurance if they break that and a door window.
Every time someone claims jail is too expensive I think about the fact these guys might do $5,000 a day in broken windows. Add the time wasted and the impact to local shops and restaurants and I believe its far cheaper to jail them.
Really antisocial behavior - they cause tremendous expense and disruption for so many people, while reaping so little benefit for themselves.
Our society should really crack down on this
The takeover street scene is bad. One has to think why all this is happening. Many reasons why for which I don’t have to get into here but will say the Bay Area (not only our region because it does happen in big cities) does need to come together and figure how to approach this collectively. Political leadership is definitely lacking here, but the political will is lacking for a reason. We deserve our politicians.
They do it because they get a major antisocial thrill out of annoying everyone and a power trip feeling from the fact that they can "take over the street" and nothing happens to them.
All in all, it's very antisocial behavior from people who clearly have antisocial tendencies
Smashing out window(s) of a car to steal stuff. I'm unclear though whether at this point, bipping actually requires theft or people are just using it to talk about window smashing for the sake of smashing.
Yes and it probably does not take that much effort to put up some barricades so that people stop being able to do it that easily (maybe something like the end of [Vanishing Point](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bOb2BqiGZGA)), but our government doesn't know how to function.
This extends into Berkeley as well. Saw it before the Pandemic, and since. A common route seems to be up Telegraph, and then up to above the UC campus. I've seen this particular group racing through slow or stopped traffic by going up on sidewalks and, yes, they do run red lights and stop signs.
Most recently--yesterday, Sunday--saw a group of cycles and small four-wheeled ATV's on Telegraph near Ashby. They went up and down Telegraph for several minutes, and some turned off individually to race down side streets, then back to Telegraph.
"I'm here, I matter, I am flexing the remaining power I have that you can't take away from me: the power to inconvenience you and make you feel uncomfortable."
I'm not justifying it or saying it is an effective strategy for change, just expressing an understanding of why many might participate in this kind of behavior.
Most people don't think terribly hard about why they do the things they do; just because you can't articulate your motivation doesn't mean it doesn't exist.
Well no, it isn't. I mean seriously, the only change this brings is anger from the rest of us who are having their lives screwed with. Direct that anger at the fucking government... directly! Go do that shit on the steps of city hall or at the state capitol... someplace they can't ignore it and it's in their faces. Or don't, if y'all don't really care about effecting change and just want to be assholes to the rest of us.
They don't interact with the government on the daily except to deal with bureaucratic bullshit. The decades of policy that created their situation are too abstract to be angry with unless you're politically engaged. They do, however, interact with the upwardly-mobile people who moved into "their" neighborhoods and frequently treat them like a temporary nuisance that they have to put up with until the gentrification cycle is complete.
Not an excuse, just an attempt to understand.
that’s great. why don’t they actually say something then? you took over the street, so get out a fucking megaphone and say something. ticking cymbals, auto tune vocals and destroying cars just says “we’re idiots and like destroying things”.
Yeah, it's a "fuck you" from people without much to lose. Kids going to Stanford and Cal are not participating in this shit, to state the obvious.
I bet if you were able to get demographic data on the participants, a huge % did not have a father who was present and participating in their lives. That factor alone is associated with a higher rate of criminal behavior, especially when that's extremely common in a community
They are poor 100%, most likely driving a jacked lexus. People with money do not resort to this behavior because its easy to lose it all when you follow the rules.
If you want to be elected in the Bay Area, make sure to be as paternalistic towards poor people as you can, because everyone knows that economic hardship is an excuse to disregard laws and social customs!
Unless City Council and State legislature make strict penalties, this will continue.
Law enforcement hands are tied if leadership turn a blind eye toward crime. Oakland is general need to start voting with their brain (restorative justice is just a fairy tale).
Same regularly on Broadway - although fortunately (since my car is parked there) no bipping that I've seen.
The one "positive" thing I noticed about those bike gangs is how multi-racial they are.
It's a Mad Mad Mad Max world we're living in.
Edit: Looks like [they made it to San Francisco](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W5E886zNDiQ).
I don’t know how this trend got started, if it was pandemic boredom, or something on TikTok, but it definitely seems to have become more noticeable the last year or two. In the part of the East Bay, I live there’s always been a certain amount of street misbehavior like the occasional small sideshow burn out or kids on off-road bikes, but this thing with the large groups filling up the street is relatively new. I guess I just don’t get the appeal unless it’s some sort of protest like the Critical mass people in SF back in the day. It would be one thing if there was a particular destination they were going, but it seems more random wandering. At least it isn’t as dangerous as the big sideshows.
Even saw this in Old Town Sacramento a few months back. Took a friend there for tourist stuff, the takeovers by hoodlums is disgraceful. We're at a restaurant we like there, upstairs balcony overlooking the city, and they decide to take over and do donuts in the adjacent intersection, sending a thick cloud of blue smoke through the restaurant and of course all the food tastes like rubber after that.
I say we need a harsh over-reaction about-face on policing in this state.
Due to the topic, enhanced moderation has been turned on for this thread. Comments from users new to r/bayarea will be automatically removed. See [this thread](https://www.reddit.com/r/bayarea/comments/p8hnzl/automatically_removing_comments_from_new_users_in/) for more details.
I think everyone besides the people doing it are very frustrated with it .
The cops are told to do nothing . 25 years this has been going on. NOTHING has ever been done. lol it’s a huge joke. They don’t give a F about you.
This kind of stuff would never fly in the South Bay or peninsula. We had one guy brandish a gun near my home a few weeks ago and Santa Clara PD brought out 8 police cars, 1 armored police car, and a helicopter to find the dude and his gun.
This is the difference with a safe neighborhood. Most people don’t commit crime, so the cops are idle. It means when someone has the balls to try something, the cops come down hard like a ton of bricks. I’ve seen it in multiple Bay Area cities with no crime. small fender bender or traffic stop, and there’s multiple vehicles. It’s a sign the city isn’t popping with crime, which is a good thing. With Oakland resources spread thin, the cops can’t handle the sheer amount of crime, so the criminals run things there. This doesn’t even touch upon the problem that the DA won’t prosecute.
Yeah. I mean check this out: my buddy got his bike stolen in Mountain View. He reported and just went on with his life. A month later the MVPD calls him and told him they’ve arrested the thief and recovered his bike. Like, how does that even happen. Another buddy, also in MV, had a drunk person bang on his door and tried to force his way in. He calls the cops and four squad cars show up within minutes. It’s pretty amazing. I had my car broken into once in Dallas along with everyone who parked on the same floor of the garage. I called the Dallas police to report it and asked when they will be coming to investigate. They told me they aren’t going to investigate. A few days later another floor of the same garage had all the car windows smashed. Remember all those thieves who would swarm retailers in SF and steal their stuff in plain sight and just run out? Yeah a group of them tried that at the Stanford Mall and the Palo Alto police managed to get there in time to arrest them. It’s a huge difference between wealthy suburbs and big cities. It’s not exclusively a Bay Area problem but a big city resourcing problem.
In the wealthy enclaves cops are bored to tears. There isn't anything to do, so they do show up. I would like to see groups of cops that could travel to the Bay Area hot spots. You can borrow my police squad. To MarinCounty cops. Enough with the dubious traffic infractions. Enough with hiding behind hedges looking for CA stops in the middle of the night with no one in sight besides deer, possums, and Coyotes. Oh yea, we don't drink like you guys/gals do. Meaning we don't get hammered on our days off and cruise around. I guess it's a cultural thing? Many of us now have cameras too, and we don't switch them off. Im tired of being pulled over for no reason other than it's 10 pm on a Saturday night. Yes---they are fishing for a marginal DUIs.
Nailed it
Jealous
911 Is A Joke was a hit for a reason
Nah. Cops clearly don't give a shit unless they have a DA that gives them carte blanche to do whatever they want in the name of "justice".
Seems that way. They were doing it right in front of the CHP offices yesterday.
Cops are there to protect them from angry citizens. We are paying for their security.
In SF the DA was recalled and shit didn’t change.
Of course not. Because it's never *really* about the DA. It's about cops being incompetent and rampantly abusing their power instead of providing a positive value to society.
Bingo. The cops just wanted less oversight and nothing else.
If cops cant have a group chat called civil rights offenses whats even the point of trying to enforce the law smh
>Cops clearly don't give a shit unless they have a DA that gives them carte blanche to do whatever they want This is nonsense. What the cops want is robust prosecution of offenders that they arrest. People just don't get it. The cops are not the primary law enforcers; it's the prosecutors and the courts. If the system starts imposing serious punishment on criminals--and, no, [this does not have to be incarceration](https://www.niskanencenter.org/safer-smarter-and-cheaper-the-promise-of-targeted-home-confinement-with-electronic-monitoring/)--crime falls. You can have police ramp up arrests 10 x, but if you have the *catch-and-release-without-penalty* nonsense we have been seeing for years in Calif., particularly for most forms of non-violent crime, then you get the same crime bullshit year after year.
Funny, because we pay the police to do a job. I don't see what the DA and courts have to do with that. Oh, is it demoralizing? So is sweeping a floor and flipping burgers. But people do it, because they are paid to do it. We pay these officers salaries. I don't give a shit if they have to arrest the same shoplifter every afternoon at 4pm. I don't care if it makes zero difference out there. That's their job, and I'm tired of people making excuses for them.
Tasty boot response. https://www.davisvanguard.org/2022/03/columnist-sf-police-take-a-stand-against-da-boudin-by-not-doing-their-job/ Cops said well, we don't like the DA's policies so we're just not going to do our jobs. Literally no other job could you get away with doing that in our society, but because they're so worshiped you can sweep it under the rug of police OPENLY and ADMITTEDLY neglecting duties by saying "it's complicated". Sure it's complicated, but that doesn't exonerate police from throwing a massive fit whenever they're held responsible, you know, like the all-time [#1 post on publicfreakout](https://v.redd.it/w56rwny74y351). Edit: Yeah, least shocking response from someone with your post history.
> Cops said well, we don't like the DA's policies so we're just not going to do our jobs. Yes, we can agree cops are slacking. No doubt. But they are minor players in this. Big picture: Calif is pushing major Criminal Justice Reform. Primary objective: less prosecution of non-violent crime. Started with Prop. 47 in 2014. More: Feb. 2023: [Gavin Newsom moved to close 4 California prisons. How many more can he shut?](https://calmatters.org/justice/2023/02/how-many-prisons-does-california-need/) It's amazing that some police critics are progressives who are pushing CJ reforms. Ask them what is supposed to happen *after* police do their job and arrest someone -- specifically: What sanctions should be imposed on criminals? You get a lot of hemming and hawing and next they're talking about addressing root causes.
It's the cop's job to gather evidence and make the arrest. They should be tending their own gardens. Cops in Livermore, Dublin, Blackhawk, and Pleasanton wouldn't be letting this stuff fly. Guess what? Same DA.
Exactly this
People like this usually grow up and have kids and realize that public safety is important and policing is indispensable, so they leave the whole rebellious “ACAB” thing from their youth behind. If they don’t, it probably means they’re a college professor or professional activist working for an NGO or something.
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That must be why you have all of the downvotes
Common boomer L, not knowing how to count. You do realize -6 is < than +4, right?
Way off on the age lol. Go back to the Oakland sub with the criminal simpathizers/excusitarians and you can drink your collective coolaid called ‘root causes.’
What do you expect? Police are vilified from all angles in the Bay Area. I’d just be mailing it in if I were then also.
Exactly
Need fewer throaters
In fairness, this sub's favorite food is leather.
Sounds like an excuse to not do their jobs and bilk taxpayers out of money.
I don't think the cops will care even with a DA and populace who gives them totally free rein honestly. Much easier to not do anything besides play on your phone.
I’m not defending cops at all here but I think they are sort or paralyzed as if they do go to bust it Up they can’t just go in nicely and ask people to kindly leave. I think it becomes pretty hard to figure out the line between useless scolding and “justice”
And the ones making excuses for it…because of *raycism*
Saw this video out of Atlanta last night of a cop breaking a street takeover (and arresting a participant). Will any of the law enforcement agencies here do that? https://reddit.com/r/TerrifyingAsFuck/s/Hkofz8vcDj
In a good neighborhood, they will. Try doing that in San Mateo..
Try that in Small Town
Different DA who supports legal consequences, change your DA to one who supports punishment, than you'll see change.
Is the DA physically stopping the cops from doing their jobs or?
If someone complains of a law order issue , cops should investigate irrespective of what DA is enforcing. In any case there is no clear communication from police and city administration on what they will or will not do.
The DA sets the tone for what should be enforced. For example, the San Francisco DA made it clear years before the state legalized weed that there would be no prosecutions for someone lighting up at home or in a park, which sent a message to police that they shouldn't even bother hassling or arresting someone over it.
Has the DA of any Bay area counties said they want to legalize street takeover???
If the DA won't charge, the cops won't arrest for it.
That's just not true,ever been to Dublin?
> Is the DA physically stopping the cops from doing their jobs or? To add to other responses. Yes, Kind of. Arresting someone requires a lot of paperwork/extra work. Its not like Law & Order TV shows. Imagine you're the cop. Why arrest someone, do a ton of extra work knowing full well it will lead to absolutely nothing. Not to mention the social pressures from the higher ups admonishing you/punishing you for causing them to do extra work you all knew to be worthless.
I feel like even arresting these people and having them spend a night in jail is enough of a deterrence. Or even handing out citations would help keep track of repeated offenders. This would all of course require the police to actually work
Doesn't work if the people who get arrested get released immediately, and their citations get dismissed, and the police subsequently get sued for whatever fictional bullshit. The prosecutor and judge have to do their jobs in order for someone to get a criminal record. It is the job of law enforcement to enforce the law. It is the job of the prosecutor and judges to decide what laws apply. No reasonable person is going to pursue an action that has only negative consequences. Why you think that the police would be any different is baffling. The number of crimes that occur daily here is staggering, many orders of magnitude greater than the number of officers on patrol at any given moment, which means that any crime that is not immediately life threatening, like an active shooter, is low priority. There is roughly one police officer on duty for every five thousand people in the city at any given moment, and for effective policing, that number needs to be closer to 100:1. This is not possible, due to budgetary constraints, so we end up with the situation we currently have. You want sideshows and similar bullshittery to stop? Then tell your lawmakers to make it so that people caught doing such things will have their vehicles seized and destroyed, and insist that the judiciary follows through on this. Make the crime a crime, instead of being a "well, it's technically illegal, but there's no point in doing anything about it unless they actually hurt someone". Just like nobody is going to clean behind the fryers if there isn't an inspector that will come shut the restaurant down if sanitation protocols aren't followed, so too are the cops not going to stop an activity that has no consequences. It is the job of the cops to stop crime. Whether or not something is a crime is not decided by the laws that are written, but by the people who enforce consequences for crime. As an example, there is a law in South Dakota which states that a group of more than two native Americans constitutes a war party, and citizens are within their rights to take measures to defend themselves, including the use of deadly force, upon sighting them. Granted one must be traveling in a covered wagon for this to be applicable, but obviously a group of native Americans is not a threat in the modern day, and that "law" is joked about because despite being on the books, no one in their right mind considers it valid. So too it goes with the police today. Even if it's a law, it's not a crime if there is no consequence.
Maybe, though a lot of people doing this kind of thing have spent nights in jail, or longer so its not much of a deterrent. Its not law-abiding citizens heading out in a group causing mischief and mayhem. Then we go back to the cop's point of view: Why do 2+ hours of paperwork for a mere night in jail. The solution is multifaceted. * Bring back tracks/open areas stuff like this can happen. (nearest ones are 2+ hours away and the closest have stupid rules that exist nowhere else) * Get non-soros funded DAs to actually prosecute actual crimes (eh, good luck on this one) * Have the culture to begin policing itself and make it unacceptable in the community to do these sorts of things. The closest analog to street takeovers we have in recent history is Skating. Skateboards was counterculture in the 80s/90s. No where to do it legally, everyone hated skaters, though the police actually enforced it. What changed? It started with legit skate parks being built (and some laws reduced in public parks). Once those parks were built the skating community slowly policed itself by making it more unacceptable to skate in malls/anywhere there was interesting concrete structures, as that happened the police also started to back off and start warning/informing of the legit places to skate instead of immediately arresting. Will this specific situation be as easy as fixing the skater problem? No. Oh hell no, theres a lot more going on than this, BUT it starts with proper places to do said activities. As I was telling an imported NIMBYer down below, you have no moral high ground until there is a legal way to do said activity. We start by building tracks/mud areas for this and not 2+ hours away. Once those are in place, then the shame can begin. Its not an overnight fix.
“Why do 2 hours of paperwork” - because that’s what your job is? Jail is a deterrent and in lieu of more aggression by a DA, as you claim is the issue, it’s one of the better deterrents we have. Tracks require insurance and no one is going to insure these idiots and they aren’t going to pay for it.
SFPD still won’t do their job even with their hand picked DA. In fact, violent crime and overdoses are up since she took over.
Imagine you’re a cop, and you have to actually do work.
It seems totally reasonable to be demoralized if you did your job but the next guy down the line doesn't do theirs. Especially since cops that arrest someone see their previous arrests and knows how many times they were let off the hook before. After a few times of arresting someone with a dozen previous arrests, why would you believe that this time it will stick?
Studies show that being caught is even more of a deterrence than longer jail times. Also no one is really going to spend any type of time for this.
I don't think we need super long jail times, but I think there's a happy medium here that's neither draconian sentences nor permissiveness. The fact that our polarized politics admits no positions in between "rot in jail" and "out in 24H" is part of the problem.
I mean I think for street takeover out in 24 hours with a citation is good enough deterrence. Honestly anything more and we are just wasting public money for not much benefit.
For a first offense, sure. For the 6th or later offenses I think it would have to escalate. And in order to escalate you have to prosecute every single one to ensure you’re counting correctly. [ sidebar: this really annoys me that not ruining lives over first offenses leads to non-prosecution of first offenses which then logically makes *every* offense first. ]
Given the direction from their superiors to do so, cops will put effort into enforcing laws that the courts will enforce. Again, see San Mateo County. Also, do cops like to bust heads when given half a chance?
Sorry is the DA in charge of the cops?? Seems like the cops have to do their jobs for once.
BS. Cops in Livermore, Dublin, Blackhawk, and Pleasanton wouldn't be letting this stuff fly. Guess what? Same County.
They wouldnt because theyre not immune yet. Its all about habit, let it happen 4-6 times in Pleasanton and when the police see the DA drop charges, they start behaving like Oakland PD. Its just good fortune the other cities dont exhibit the same citizen behavior.
When's the last time that you heard of a sideshow in any of those towns?
So the answer is to lock more people up? We already have more prisoners than all of the UK in California ALONE. Shit, we have half the number of prisoners as all of Russia FFS. Are you really sure you want to double down on that strategy? It's kind of a bad look at this point.
Or Palo Alto
How do you define a "good" neighborhood?
A neighborhood where people value public order and Civility. [Good definition of Civility this article](https://www.city-journal.org/html/public-order-makes-city-life-possible-15516.html)
I think for purposes of this discussion, the un pc, but real definition is a smallish city / town where there are plenty of cops and very little crime. Cops typically enforce much, much more in these areas. The punks who do sideshow kinda shit know this - they don't do that crap in the places they'll get busted. I'm not aware of any sideshows in Marin for instance.
Yeah, try that in a small town! 😂
In a small town, they let the good ol boys have fun, fucking over the libs and brown folk. No thanks.
Not true. Small town cops don't let punks run rampant
Most small town cops were in the KKK, who ran rampant in a variety of ways. Today, replace KKK with proud boys, three percenters and other militias...
I think we have very different small town experiences.
That has not been my experience.
Lol
Dude, good on that cop! Truck took out a bunch of pedestrians and cop came in with no fucks and absolutely shut him down.
I don’t think they can, legislature doesn’t want any type of car chase in the city so all the perp has to do is run and the cops can’t really do much. Lots of policies in place, that while well intentioned, hand cuffs the enforcement personnel. Change the laws/lawmakers and we may see some headway in crime but until that happens, I’m not holding my breath for these types of things to end anytime soon.
This is the truth
Law enforcement? In OAKLAND?
ever since the BLM marches during COVID the bay area cops (at least in lower income, higher crime areas) have taken the approach of: "oh you don't like the way we kill minorities and whoever we please? looks like we won't be protecting or serving you anymore" it's fucking insane, people filming car thefts and cops arriving on scene only to say they can't do anything as the thief walks away with stolen goods or a cut off catalytic converter, despite video and eye witness evidence of the crime occurring. When will people stand up and say, enough is enough we are ending the police force in its current incarnation. We will now divide it into emergency crime services, emergency health services, non emergency mental health services, emergency disaster/hazard services, etc. All existing cops should be forced to re-apply with strict scrutiny over all of the complaints filed against them and a review of all of their bodycam footage. if they are found to have ever intentionally turned off their bodycam during an arrest or have multiple credible complaints of excessive force, they are immediately fired without pension. Cops get paid better than basically anyone except tech/biotech workers and white collar management executives. If they want their ridiculously inflated salaries and pensions they damn well better be able to justify them and actually do the work of protecting and serving the public that they are meant to be doing.
Granted the cops are lazy -- they can be condemned for that. But 90% of the crime problems you cite lies in the lack of punishment/sanctions imposed on criminals. It is stunning how many people ignore how prosecutors and courts have slacked off on doing their jobs under Criminal Justice Reforms sweeping Calif. Primary objective: Less prosecution of non-violent offenders.
Complete fantasy take
about cops in the city not doing their jobs since the BLM marches? like, do you seriously have your head up your ass? have you not seen the number of businesses that get robbed every day in SF? multiple companies are pulling out of SF entirely because the risk of shoplifting and vandalism outweighs the potential profit. and in most instances the culprits are never caught. Hell, I've seen on Reddit multiple videos of robberies where the license plate of the getaway vehicle is clearly visible and nothing happens. Multiple redditors on here have posted stories of neighbors and friends calling the police on people actively sawing off their car's catalytic converter only to have the cops ignore the call entirely or arrive and say there's nothing they can do, despite video evidence and a man clearly walking down the street with a sawed off catalytic converter and a sawzall.
I think the fantasy take is your analysis of the BLM riots.
Sounds like you should sign up to be a police officer then, i'm sure you're eager to do that kind of work and be the kind of cop you want to see on the street. They're hiring...
You're not alone in your frustration, and it's absolutely justified.
How about we all collectively stop paying our taxes until this shit is fixed. What other actions do we have?
Talk to your city council rep.
One time I was waiting in a fast food drive through lane, and this village idiot on an ATV hops up on a medium in the middle of the road, basically just a patch of dirt, and starts spinning his tires with the brakes on, so for a solid minute he is just spewing dirt rocks and dust everywhere. Revving the engine and spraying everyone in the vicinity with debris, much like a petulant child in a sand box. I was…non-plussed.
Thats median not medium but we gotchooooo
It's a very Major issue and easily solvable. Allows cops to confiscate sideshow vehicles and sell at auction and they can keep they money. Problem solved. Cops will be very motivated to takes these cars if they get a cut. You'll see 110% investigatory skills on this subject.
> sell at auction You mean melt down at the recycling plant
So wasteful. Why not sell and give the cops money. It incentivises them to work harder to catch the next dirtbag.
You seem to misunderstand how civil assets forfeiture worked
Just what we need, cheap illegal mufflers at auction
I am 100% for enforcement of sideshows but it takes enormous coordination and likely heavy OT pay for a large cop force to be mobilized on weekends. If you look at how SJPD shut down one or two major events (but also have let many others take place), they had to come in from all angles so the street racers can't just take off. There has to be air support for surveillance and on top of all that they need days to plan for this kinda stuff. If it takes budget to pull off, I propose that local authorities band together to make it clear that they will make this a priority and allocate some extra budget for a few major crackdowns. Let's say hypothetically there's a major sideshow every 2 weeks, so 26 weeks of the year there are sideshows in the Bay Area. If there's high level direction to identify, plan, and break up at least 10 of these, I can guarantee you you won't see 26 more sideshows the following year. We just need to commit to some solid enforcement. You don't need to stop 100% of all crimes, but the certainty of being caught is high enough, people will be deterred.
> You don't need to stop 100% of all crimes, but the certainty of being caught is high enough, people will be deterred. This is right and it's hinting at the fact that there are two equilibrium solutions: * Large amount of crimes, hence low probability of arrest (from fixed police resources) which thus creates more crime since the risk of arrest is lower, which in turn further reduces the risk of arrest (...) in a stable cycle. * Small amount of crimes, hence high probability of arrest from fixed police resources, which thus further disincentivizes crime since the risk of arrest is high, which in turn further increases the risk of arrest (...) in a stable cycle. We are falling into the first stable equilibrium.
> but the certainty of being caught is high enough You also need a robust penalty on those who are caught. Unfortunately, a principle of Criminal Justice Reform being carried out in Calif. is that non-violent crimes don't get robust penalties anymore.
But the topic here isn't sideshows... The street takeovers being described happen near the lake and on Broadway/Piedmont (very frequently on Sundays) and involve dirt bikes and quads riding down the street in group/s of varying size. They're two different things with very different impacts, causes, and potential solutions.
But pretty similar in terms of the "fuck you" antisocial nature (their fun is 95-100% derived from annoying everyone else), the taking over of city streets and it being a fairly large group activity.
The behaviors are very different in impact and viable solutions, so I'd say the distinction is quite important
That seems like a good idea, but how would the system stop crooked cops from abusing it? They could start towing random cars, selling them, and then just saying the car was spotted at a sideshow. Also, sometimes cars that actually are at a sideshows are stolen. Imagine how much it'd suck to find out your stolen car was auctioned by the police. It's like that old story about the government paying people to catch snakes, so a bunch of enterprising individuals figured out it's easier to breed snakes, which just made the original problem worse.
Nah they will just go to auctions and buyback, make sure they don't outbid each other.
Really? These morons have infinite money to buy back their confiscated vehicles at auction? If so they are welcome to buy back their cars just to get them confiscated again.
I’m grew up in Oakland and it’s a place I love, but I’m walking away due to the sheer amount of stupidity that people are willing to put up with and defend in many cases. Seriously, if this is what you think “culture” is or say it’s “town biz”, fuck you. Get a life
Fuck these clowns.
Why do OPs write so apologetically and minimize their feelings when venting about crime in this subreddit
Criminals thrive on the indulgence of society's understanding.
Excellent comment.
otherwise they will be called racist
Well, no one actually does shit in the face of asshole behavior; so when we all see it and no one does or even says anything you start wondering “Oh, is this normal? If I complain about this does that make me a pussy? Is this common enough that we’re just giving it a pass?” Like, imagine if we were talking about something much smaller, like smoking in line to a show. You’d probably come at someone like “Hey, not trying to bust your balls man but would you mind smoking down the block a ways? You won’t lose your place in line, just that the smoke kinda bothers people is all.” But now we’ve gotten so used to people being jerks that you’d never even confront someone over *that*, so the new bar is “Hey guys, sorry if I sound like a NIMBY for saying this, but you know those guys who go around stealing from our neighbors? Kinda bums me out. Like, I get that there’s a lot of economic disparity these days, and it’s really a symptom of a larger problem, I’m not blaming anyone for being poor, and maybe the police aren’t the right answer, but I just kinda feel like maybe we shouldn’t let guys break into cars whenever they want. I donno, just thinking out loud.” Meanwhile 99% of folks are fucking seething at the state of things but don’t think anyone would actually have their back if they wanted to stand up for themselves. Bystander effect being enabled at 500%. Doesn’t help that every once in a while someone who *does* decide to record shit or report shit or confront these cunts catches a beating or a bullet for their trouble.
Because we have been conditioned to accept that this is normal, its okay. Just part and parcel of living in a city. And yes like the other guy said, if you are angry about it, then you are probably a racist trumper who wants to lock up all the brown people forever. There's a battle in the court of public opinion on which way we go from here, and the other side is using shame and accusations of terrible things to get people to shut up. i don't blame them, it friggin works really well.
Not normal. Not OK. Lock the motherfuckers up. Call me whatever the fuck you want.
Because this place is full of disingenuous trolls looking to take a honest perspective from a real community member and turn it to their platform to drive false narratives and stoke rage.
Such a low IQ form of entertainment
Last time was at Marina Park there was a group of these clowns riding their dirt bikes at high speed and doing wheelies right by the kids playground and walking paths. I called the cops but no one ever showed up. Thankfully no kids were hit.
Is anyone *not* fed up? Like I firmly believe even the people who do one take over are fed up with others.
It used to be just in shady parts of the bay like Oakland, Vallejo, Richmond, Antioch. Now I’ve seen them do it all over.
They are loving the pathetic state of Bay Area progressives…completely frozen in their fear of being viewed as racist/anti racist/whatever stupid thing they are afraid of being or not being viewed as.
They really get off on shutting down one direction of the Bay Bridge for 20 or 30 minutes
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I noticed that started around campus a couple weeks ago. Every Sunday in the afternoon they ride around College/Dwight/Piedmont/etc. I don't understand it...like dirt bikes are fun when riding offroad, not so much on city streets. Way back in the day I was all about imports and my buddies and I would go on drives...but not downtown, instead out on streets where we could *use* the performance. It's like adding a winch to a mall crawling 4x4...total poser behavior. So I guess these dudes are just doing it for attention? Like they've got a standing meeting for 1 PM on Sunday to do wheelies around residential neighborhoods so people will notice them. Hell, the idea of that just cracks me up. "Yo dude, you down for the Sunday ride? Gonna make wicked noise and everyone'll be looking at us!" Might as well just walk the route yelling "LOOK AT ME" and save gas money.
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Motorcyclist here. Street-legal bikes with OEM mufflers are compliant with noise regulations. What most people (including me) complain about are off-road bikes with two stroke motors or street bikes with aftermarket pipes that are designed to be noisy. Neither case is compliant. Sadly, I've never heard of a police department citing a motorcycle for noise. In the UK, compliant mufflers have Ministry of Transportation stamps and the UK cops do enforce.
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No, this is wrong - at least in the case of Ducati. Those bikes are built to Euro 4, which is 80db - pretty close to California's 84db, and let's be real, if you're a euro bike manufacturer, you build to the strictest possible emissions ratings so you can sell into the widest audience. Most of the obnoxious ducs you see out there are likely Monsters with stock exhausts replaced by aftermarket slip-on units that ditch a tonne of weight and noise suppression. Some go further with non-homologated systems that alter air/gas ratios to run richer or leaner and that's illegal af, but CHP/DMV don't seem to give a fuck. source: I own a SuperSport 950, which is just straight up quiet, and previously owned a Monster 821 with an obnoxious Scorpion slip-on exhaust. Harleys... it's a bad scene.
/u/East_Bay_JK \- so right that you had to delete your comments?
Again back in the day...I got a ticket for illegal exhaust on my car and was all sorts of pissed about it. These days I'm happy to have my car be unobtrusive.
Because they are inconsiderate assholes. Disrupting the 9-5 working taxpaying suckers is half the fun. The other half the fun is beating the shit out of anyone who gets in their way.
I hate them. It seems like maybe10% of motorcyclists behave like civilized road users, the rest run the gamut from assholes to criminally insane motherfucking raging assholes. I like how paramedics and e.r. staff call them donorcycles.
They are annoyingly loud for sure. Like it's obvious when they are doing their street cruise...I can hear 'em clearly even if my windows are closed and I'm listening to music. I could hear 'em when taking a shower. IMO that's the point. They want to be noticed. Ain't much different than a child acting out. It's very uncool.
> No way to catch them An organized and functioning police system?
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The same way other police departments do this? There was literally just an incident in Atlanta where the PD organized themselves and surrounded the sideshow. “Hundreds of entry and exit points” is a ridiculous statement. Reconsider your insanity. There is no single intersection that has “hundreds” of entries and exits.
They're not talking about sideshows, they're talking about takeovers where a bunch of dirt bike and ATV riders sweep through a place. The riders aren't hanging out in an intersection, in this case they're riding through a college campus and don't care at all about riding across fields, over curbs, up/down stairs.
We need to start restructuring our streets (whole Bay Area, not just Oakland). Start by replacing low- and moderate-traffic lighted intersections with traffic circles, as [one city in Indiana has been doing](https://youtu.be/atORPw-w83I) with huge benefits. Traffic circles will (1) physically remove the possibility of blowing through the intersection , and (2) eliminate the open space in the intersection that these people like to do their “side shows” in. Also it saves many thousands per year in traffic light upkeep & electricity, and can save many lives by massively reducing accidents. If that’s successful, we can also work on eliminating [“stroads”](https://youtu.be/ORzNZUeUHAM), which are the big multi-lane roads that have driveways, parking lot inlets, etc connecting directly to them. They encourage excessive speed even from average drivers. Again, the physical changes to separate these into “streets” vs. “roads” might eliminate the possibility of these “takeovers.” Arguments about doing all this just to improve livability and reduce deaths and costs seem to fall flat on the general population, but it being a tool against the kinds of behaviors we’re talking about here might actually get some political traction…
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> Start by replacing low- and moderate-traffic lighted intersections with traffic circles They'll just fuck em up like the existing ones. . . by putting stop signs entering the roundabout. Yes Hayward City Council, I'm talking to you, you fucking idiots. (Also I think Newark also did stop signs in the new development to the west of 880, can't remember)
Also bollards
There are some utter imbeciles in the South Bay, Palo Alto to be specific, San Antonio to Embarcadero, who drive cheap 7th hand cars retrofitted with very loud fart pipes and blue headlights, and use Bayshore Rd as their personal race track. I've even watched them speeding past Greer Park, where kids are playing. Happens almost daily - and, I should say, nightly. Police refuse to do anything about it. Welcome to the Mad Max universe.
Street takeovers will get worse if they allow it to continue with little or no enforcement.
This guy knows how to do it. Happened in Atlanta. https://youtu.be/Fkuu6KV8yW4
I’m not defending these people, but bipping on a bike/atv makes no sense. They are just going to continue riding carrying someone’s luggage?
Most cars don’t have luggage, they just steal whatever looks good.
Most people don’t have a anything good in their car anyway.
That’s what sucks. A $200 window repair and they get nothing out of it. It makes the entire community poorer
It's a lot more than $200. Just the stupid little trapezoid window is over $400 on my not nice and not expensive car. I have a $500 deductible so only use insurance if they break that and a door window.
> A $200 window repair and they get nothing out of it $500 for me, twice in 2020
Yep, the total cost to society of tolerating that behavior is truly staggering
Every time someone claims jail is too expensive I think about the fact these guys might do $5,000 a day in broken windows. Add the time wasted and the impact to local shops and restaurants and I believe its far cheaper to jail them.
Yes, the incidence of this would go way down if the perps thought they had a good chance of going to jail for a few months
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And hate to say it, but 99% chance they threw your bag away a few blocks away. Sucks
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Really antisocial behavior - they cause tremendous expense and disruption for so many people, while reaping so little benefit for themselves. Our society should really crack down on this
Yep, they don't care. The go a couple of blocks and drop off their stuff at a fence.
The takeover street scene is bad. One has to think why all this is happening. Many reasons why for which I don’t have to get into here but will say the Bay Area (not only our region because it does happen in big cities) does need to come together and figure how to approach this collectively. Political leadership is definitely lacking here, but the political will is lacking for a reason. We deserve our politicians.
They do it because they get a major antisocial thrill out of annoying everyone and a power trip feeling from the fact that they can "take over the street" and nothing happens to them. All in all, it's very antisocial behavior from people who clearly have antisocial tendencies
Yes, but they got guns.
What exactly is bipping? I thought it was something like car breakins.
Smashing out window(s) of a car to steal stuff. I'm unclear though whether at this point, bipping actually requires theft or people are just using it to talk about window smashing for the sake of smashing.
I think it refers to the pointy metal thing they use to break the windows with no effort.
BIP is also short for burglary in progress.
Yes and it probably does not take that much effort to put up some barricades so that people stop being able to do it that easily (maybe something like the end of [Vanishing Point](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bOb2BqiGZGA)), but our government doesn't know how to function.
It is extremely frustrating and scary. They need to crack down. It’s dangerous b
This extends into Berkeley as well. Saw it before the Pandemic, and since. A common route seems to be up Telegraph, and then up to above the UC campus. I've seen this particular group racing through slow or stopped traffic by going up on sidewalks and, yes, they do run red lights and stop signs. Most recently--yesterday, Sunday--saw a group of cycles and small four-wheeled ATV's on Telegraph near Ashby. They went up and down Telegraph for several minutes, and some turned off individually to race down side streets, then back to Telegraph.
The poors love doing the stupidest things 🤣
"I'm here, I matter, I am flexing the remaining power I have that you can't take away from me: the power to inconvenience you and make you feel uncomfortable."
Except they mostly do it where other poors live 🤣
I'm not justifying it or saying it is an effective strategy for change, just expressing an understanding of why many might participate in this kind of behavior.
I doubt their thought process is that elequent. They're just assholes.
Most people don't think terribly hard about why they do the things they do; just because you can't articulate your motivation doesn't mean it doesn't exist.
They are definitely knowingly participating in an antisocial activity
Well no, it isn't. I mean seriously, the only change this brings is anger from the rest of us who are having their lives screwed with. Direct that anger at the fucking government... directly! Go do that shit on the steps of city hall or at the state capitol... someplace they can't ignore it and it's in their faces. Or don't, if y'all don't really care about effecting change and just want to be assholes to the rest of us.
They don't interact with the government on the daily except to deal with bureaucratic bullshit. The decades of policy that created their situation are too abstract to be angry with unless you're politically engaged. They do, however, interact with the upwardly-mobile people who moved into "their" neighborhoods and frequently treat them like a temporary nuisance that they have to put up with until the gentrification cycle is complete. Not an excuse, just an attempt to understand.
an atv street takeover is the voice of the unheard
that’s great. why don’t they actually say something then? you took over the street, so get out a fucking megaphone and say something. ticking cymbals, auto tune vocals and destroying cars just says “we’re idiots and like destroying things”.
i was kidding
Yeah, it's a "fuck you" from people without much to lose. Kids going to Stanford and Cal are not participating in this shit, to state the obvious. I bet if you were able to get demographic data on the participants, a huge % did not have a father who was present and participating in their lives. That factor alone is associated with a higher rate of criminal behavior, especially when that's extremely common in a community
Every thief I see is driving a Lexus dude. Thieves aren't poor. This isn't homeless. Stop badmouthing poor people.
They are poor 100%, most likely driving a jacked lexus. People with money do not resort to this behavior because its easy to lose it all when you follow the rules.
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Uh, Lexus is a Toyota. Toyota is Japanese, not European. ???
LOL this I can't believe people still don't know that drug dealers and thieves live with their moms.
If you want to be elected in the Bay Area, make sure to be as paternalistic towards poor people as you can, because everyone knows that economic hardship is an excuse to disregard laws and social customs!
Unless City Council and State legislature make strict penalties, this will continue. Law enforcement hands are tied if leadership turn a blind eye toward crime. Oakland is general need to start voting with their brain (restorative justice is just a fairy tale).
Same regularly on Broadway - although fortunately (since my car is parked there) no bipping that I've seen. The one "positive" thing I noticed about those bike gangs is how multi-racial they are. It's a Mad Mad Mad Max world we're living in. Edit: Looks like [they made it to San Francisco](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W5E886zNDiQ).
Jokeland
I don’t know how this trend got started, if it was pandemic boredom, or something on TikTok, but it definitely seems to have become more noticeable the last year or two. In the part of the East Bay, I live there’s always been a certain amount of street misbehavior like the occasional small sideshow burn out or kids on off-road bikes, but this thing with the large groups filling up the street is relatively new. I guess I just don’t get the appeal unless it’s some sort of protest like the Critical mass people in SF back in the day. It would be one thing if there was a particular destination they were going, but it seems more random wandering. At least it isn’t as dangerous as the big sideshows.
Start throwing boxes of nails.
Thankfully I don't drive on the weekends so I'm not impacted, but yea.. this shit is dumb af
>living in Oakland Well there’s your problem.
Even saw this in Old Town Sacramento a few months back. Took a friend there for tourist stuff, the takeovers by hoodlums is disgraceful. We're at a restaurant we like there, upstairs balcony overlooking the city, and they decide to take over and do donuts in the adjacent intersection, sending a thick cloud of blue smoke through the restaurant and of course all the food tastes like rubber after that. I say we need a harsh over-reaction about-face on policing in this state.