By Sgt. Rick Smith, Antioch Police Field Services – Patrol

On August 31, 2019 multiple agencies gathered at the Antioch Police Department to conduct a Pro-active Detail to prevent “Sideshow Activity” and other reckless driving at multiple locations in East Contra Costa County. This was in response to a previous large scale “sideshow” event that occurred on August 23, 2019 and spanned multiple cities and locations in Eastern Contra Costa County.

The Multi-Agency Team consisting of over 20 Officers and Deputies gathered to brief and prepare for the event. A zero-tolerance approach was to be taken and several target locations were identified. In addition to Antioch PD, officers and deputies from the Contra Costa County Sheriff’s Office, CHP, Brentwood PD, Pittsburg PD, and Oakley PD all participated. Air support was provided by the Sheriff’s Office, CHP, and

During that event, dozens of vehicles and hundreds of spectators took over city streets, intersections, and various freeway locations. Due to all of these participating Agencies in this portion of the county working together and taking an aggressive approach with zero tolerance enforcement to details of this type, the incident on August 23rd was the first incident to occur in over a year. Several prior enforcement details in the past with the same zero tolerance approach, resulted in numerous citations issued, vehicles referred to the State Referee program for illegal modifications and drivers arrested on various types of charges, have prevented these types of reckless “sideshows” from occurring.

Later in the evening, approximately 75-100 vehicles, with almost twice that in attendees and spectators, began to assemble in the northeast parking lot of the Somersville Town Center Mall located in Antioch. Officers began to monitor this group in preparation of a repeat “sideshow” from the previous week.

After a short time, the participants began to filter out of the parking lot in large groups. Contra Costa County Helicopter Star 1 and CHP Airplane Air 31, along with a UAV from the Antioch Police Department were overhead monitoring this event. As large groups began to leave the location, Officers followed them on both eastbound and westbound Highway 4 prevent any reckless type driving. Both Star 1 and Air 31 assisted by each following as the groups entered the freeway. APD’s UAV remained at the Mall to maintain visual of the remaining cars.

One of the drivers chose to drive recklessly as he was leaving and did a series of “donuts” with his vehicle. Officers were able to quickly make an enforcement stop and subsequently arrested the driver and impounded his vehicle for 30-days.

The western group of participants left the county and were later identified as participants related to the enforcement action in the city of Oakland that occurred the same evening. Officers from this detail are providing information as needed to assist in their efforts and investigation.

A large group that left from the mall entered a private Commercial Warehouse lot off of Wilbur Avenue in the City of Antioch. This group proceeded to hold a “Sideshow” with several vehicles driving recklessly and several others observing. All Officers converged on the area and were able to detain all participants and spectators. Several vehicles were captured on video performing reckless driving acts by CHP Air 31. CHP Helicopter H30 arrived on scene to assist a short time later. All of the participants were subsequently arrested and later released on citations. This resulted in over 71 arrests. All vehicles identified to be involved in this event were towed and stored. This resulted in over 25 vehicles towed and stored. This included the vehicles captured performing dangerous driving maneuvers. These particular vehicles were towed and stored with 30-day holds and the drivers arrested for their reckless actions.

Through the cooperation of all involved agencies, these type of enforcement details will continue to occur within Contra Costa County. The intention is to deter these types of dangerous events from occurring and hopefully prevent any serious incidents which could result in the loss of life.

Anyone with information is asked to call the Antioch Police Department non-emergency line at (925) 778-2441. You may also text-a-tip to 274637 (CRIMES) using the key word ANTIOCH.

the attachments to this post:

Sideshow 5

Sideshow 2

Sideshow 1

Sideshow 4

Sideshow 3

This entry was posted on Sunday, September 1st, 2019 at 10:34 pm and is filed under News, Police & Crime. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.