After Massive Weekend Street Takeovers Cause Havoc, Cleveland Police Create Task Force to Address Issue

Cleveland Police Chief Dorothy Todd tried to calm an irate City Council miffed about the dozen incidents of street takeovers over the weekend in Cleveland. CPD recently formed a task force to try and issue warrants to everyone who may have violated city and state laws. Credit: Mark Oprea

Some time on Saturday evening, the Instagram account @cincytakeovers posted a story intended for followers in Cincinnati, Columbus and Cleveland. This was a street takeover. This was a big one, bigger than previous ones that year.

“We are all going to the same places,” it read. “Spots will be dropped on the story. Do not blow up our DMs asking for the spots.”

“We will not run from a cop,” it added. “If you can’t stand your ground, this isn’t your week.”

By 11:30 p.m., dozens of cars formed a drifting circle at the intersection at West 53rd and Lorain, as they would five hours later, at 4 a.m., in the middle of I-90, with hundreds of halted vehicles around them.

And, as Cleveland Police would later ascertain, at least a dozen other locations: at Scranton and Carter, West 25th and Lorain, at Steelyard Commons, on the Innerbelt Bridge, on East 55th and Lorain, East 105th and MLK, East 105th and Superior, East 93rd and Opportunity Corridor, East 66th and Harvard, Lee and Harvard, East 122nd and Larchmere and East 60th and Broadway.

The result was a massive, citywide taunt to both the Cleveland public and to police power in general. Dodge Chargers screeching as they drifted around teenagers in ski masks; girls hanging out back windows; kids in hoodies shooting off fireworks; others waving black pistols from passenger seats, or pointing them at those stuck on the freeway.

“Cleveland turnt,” a post on Instagram read days later.

“Can’t stop shit,” one user commented.

Those five hours of street takeovers, orchestrated by a series of ringleaders in three cities, have led to both a sense of panic and disbelief regarding how Cleveland Police couldn’t have prevented such chaos in time. (Even when they knew about the takeovers beforehand.) And how future takeovers of citywide proportions can be prevented so that worse outcomes—people dead—don’t come out of them.

Cleveland Police have issued three warrants related to Saturday night’s takeover, yet no arrests have yet been made as of Wednesday. CPD Chief Dorothy Todd announced the update to City Council’s Safety Committee following the department’s creation of a special task force to pursue a wider sweep of the individuals responsible.

Todd’s debrief wasn’t enough for an irate Council.

“Me and my citizens are pissed,” Council President Blaine Griffin said. “I mean, this isn’t just a one-time, one-off occasion. What are we actually doing to deal with these street takeovers? Sure, I support constitutional policing—but we have to have a plan.”

“Because next time,” Griffin added, “they’re going to run into the wrong person.”

Although street racing is as old as the car itself, street takeover culture, aided and abetted by Instagram and social media, takes displays of aggro motordom to another level. Videos of the events, advertised on pages like @ohiotakeover_ and @216.takeovers, and organized on Signal and Telegram, often depict teens in clown or animal masks hyping up drivers drifting in circles in some public place—an empty parking lot, a late-night intersection. Even under the Playhouse Square chandelier. (For which no arrests have yet been made.)

The central issue is that these gatherings are illegal and dangerous, with teens getting run over and burned by hot exhaust fumes, burning police cars in Philadelphia, or, like in April, dying after a night of street takeovers in Los Angeles. All which are used as fodder for the same Instagram pages that initially promoted them.

As for why her officers and plainclothes detectives couldn’t shut down the wave of lawlessness in Cleveland on Saturday, Todd chalked up the apparent failure to a department stretched thin, along with an array of legal limitations that dissuaded CPD officers who did respond from dispersing the takeovers with brute force.

In other words, as is spoken ad nauseum in the era of the Consent Decree, strict adherence to “constitutional policing.”

“I’ve received numerous emails from the community in the past few days: ‘Why didn’t the officer shoot? Why didn’t they round their cars?'” Todd told Council. “‘Why didn’t they do a lot of things?'” People have their perception with how we should handle it.”

“Every action or inaction taken by police will always be judged, not only by their superiors, by the media, by the community,” Todd added. “And we have to answer to the Department of Justice [Consent Decree] monitors, to the Cleveland Police Commission—and even city councils.”

Actions that could change at the end of the month. Starting October 24, a state law passed in June to curb or eliminate street takeovers entirely will go into effect, bringing with it a slew of new legal stratagems.

Primarily those that ramp up charges for anyone involved. Drivers of drifting cars could have their license immediately suspended for up to three years. And any takeover convict who flees a police officer could be guilty of a felony of the third or fourth degree—previously a first-degree misdemeanor.

Locally, Todd said her and the department’s new task force will look into “best practices” used by others, from spike strips and metal plates used to render intersections un-drift-able. And hopefully, Drummond said, finally deploy CPD’s phalanx of drones to pair with its helicopter, which was used on Saturday night.

Todd said after the meeting that Ohio State Highway Patrol did arrest one individual who may or may not have been involved in Saturday’s takeover. CPD is also working on some “really good, active leads” that may result in search warrants in the coming weeks.

But Todd predicted, and was adamant about, orchestrating a larger criminal dragnet.

“it’s one thing with the street racing or the stunt driving that they’re doing, which just might be a traffic violation,” she said.

“But when you’re organizing it and you’re doing all of these other things, those are well beyond just, you know, having a little fun in the street,” she added. “These are really serious crimes.”

Which doesn’t seem to spook those participating.

As one responded to Todd’s initial press conference: “We don’t care bitch.”