A car meet-up that looked like it may have been a scene from “The Fast and the Furious” movie franchise rampaged its way across the Coleman Bridge and into Gloucester and Mathews on the weekend of Feb. 18-19, largely eluding law enforcement but leaving at least one member of the “car club” in the hands of the Gloucester County Sheriff’s Office.
GCSO Captain Jamie Sharp said that approximately 100 sports cars had sped into the county from the Peninsula late on that Saturday night, sporadically “cutting up” by entering shopping areas and doing donuts in parking lots.
“We haven’t been a part of anything like it that our group can remember,” said Sharp.
When deputies arrived at any one scene, he said, the vehicles would speed away. But one driver was observed driving recklessly as he exited the White Marsh Shopping Center and was pursued. He ended up crashing into cars in the Auto Max car lot and was charged with four felony counts of destruction of property, one felony count of “wear masks in certain places,” and felony eluding police, as well as misdemeanor driving at speeds in excess of 85 mph, reckless driving, and having improper brakes.
Camera footage from the dealership, shared by Joe Volpe of Auto Max, shows the car entering the lot and snagging the rear of a van before taking out a light post and ramming head-on into three cars angled along the front row. Volpe said a Dodge Caravan, Nissan Kicks, Hyundai Kona, and Lexis SUV were all damaged, with two of them possibly totaled.
“It will be a hefty bill,” he said. “But nobody got hurt, and that’s the important thing.”
In Mathews
The cars weren’t finished after hitting Gloucester, though. Instead, they sped to Mathews County, where they ended up in the Food Lion parking lot. The occupants got out of their cars and lined up along the sidewalks, talking noisily as they watched each other do donuts in the lot.
Major John Williams of the Mathews County Sheriff’s Office said that several people called 911 shortly after midnight about the cars, and six deputies responded, but when they arrived at the scene the cars took off in different directions. Some of them stopped at Little Sue and Faith Baptist, where one pulled off after breaking down, he said, and he talked to the occupants of around eight or nine of the cars, or a total of around 15 people. They weren’t disrespectful, but “they didn’t tell us a whole lot either,” he said, just that they were all part of a club that rides around together.
Since deputies didn’t observe any illegal behaviors, no one in the group was arrested, said Williams.
It began in Newport News
The meet-up apparently began in Newport News. That city’s Chief of Police Steve Drew said that his department received a call around 11 p.m. on Saturday, Feb. 18 about reckless driving in the northern part of the city. The cars fled the scene, he said, but two vehicles veered off the road and into a ditch, and those drivers were given tickets. The other cars kept going into York County, which contacted Newport News for assistance, he said; but by the time officers arrived, those cars had already left.
This wasn’t the first time this has happened in Newport News, said Drew. There have been six or seven such incidents, including one on New Year’s Eve, when the police department received word that the cars were coming and positioned cars with their lights on at the off-ramp they knew the club members were headed for. This caused the incoming cars to slow down on the ramp and become backed up, he said. Officers then allowed them to exit, and they got off the ramp, then drove to the on-ramp and headed right back toward the southside, with some heading toward Isle of Wight instead.
Background
Drew said the cars involved are souped-up muscle cars with high performance engines and shortened exhaust pipes that make them louder. The participants probably range in age from 18 to 25 years old, he said, with some in college, some in the military, and others.
The meet-ups are generally not associated with other crimes, he said, and the drivers have often invested a lot of money in the vehicles, so they don’t want to mess them up or see them towed. But when cars are drag-racing, doing figure eights, and driving at the speeds they drive, sometimes with people even hanging out of the windows, accidents are inevitable, he said.
“When we pursue them, sometimes we can catch up and do a traffic stop,” said Drew, “but sometimes their driving becomes more erratic and they’ll wreck.”
He said it’s often difficult to single out someone to charge with a violation because tinted windows can make it difficult to see who was driving a vehicle and because the gatherings dissipate so quickly, with the cars accelerating at a high rate of speed.
The trend began on the West Coast, said Drew, and over the past eight to 12 months incidents have occurred a number of times in Norfolk, Newport News and Hampton. The drivers come from all over the place, even from as far away as North and South Carolina, he said, and they share information about the meet-ups on social media, but it’s often encrypted.
Police departments have begun to develop strategies to deal with such incidents, he said, and there’s ongoing discussion about ways to deter it. He said Newport News also has ongoing investigations, and he expects charges to be placed.
But the most important thing about dealing with such incidents, said Drew, is to respond in a safe, effective way. He said if a surrounding locality experiences such an incident and asks for assistance, his department will help to coordinate and direct a response.
“It takes a coordinated response to keep everyone safe,” he said. “I don’t have a problem with muscle cars, but I have a tremendous problem with people taking over an intersection at 10, 11, 12 o’clock at night and putting people in danger.”
Finally, Drew suggested that if people hear about or see such a meet-up occurring, they should contact their local police department or sheriff’s office to make sure they can “get on it as early as possible.”
