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July 22, 2007
Sideshow - A Deadly Game And Other Cop Stuff
by Jack Lee
A short time ago I got a cell call from my son (Ken Lee), he's a police officer in Stockton. He's still on duty sitting in his police car, but it's ok, he's taking his break and he was checking in to see how things are going up here in ol Chico. I tell him kinda slow. Then he tells me, late last night they (SPD) formed up with CHP to take down a "Sideshow" event. Ever hear of that? No? Well me either until now, although I just found this article about one..."OAKLAND -- Following a weekend that saw two deaths connected to "sideshow" activities, police said Monday they will put up to 80 additional officers on the streets on many weekends this summer."
Anyway, my son tells me this Sideshow, also called a Hyphy, is where a bunch of young adults and teenagers in cars gather to show off their driving skills. It typically late at night in a large parking lot or remote road and they do spin outs (360's) to entertain their friends. Sometimes there is a race, but, mostly it's spinouts or side skids. Sometimes the passengers hang out an open door as the car is spinning, other times passengers will sit in the door windows
or hang on to the top of the car as it spins and all just for a thrill. It's stupid dangerous! And of course accidents do happen and fairly regularly. As the news story above says, people have been killed in this reckless game and this is exactly why the City of Stockton was cracking down on these people.
Ok, back to the story... so one of the SPD undercover units had infiltrated a large gathering of these Hyphy or SIDESHOW vehicles and started video taping the action. They were identifying the main people involved and then calling in what they witnessed, mostly so responding units knew who to target and who to let go.
As luck would have it, SPD had about 15 police cars ready to roll and parked less than a mile away. The black and whites fanned out , surrounded the immediate area, and then closed in quickly. They bagged the whole group of Sideshow participants who simply had no where to run, even though a few tried. They netted about 30 adults and a smaller number of juveniles that were cited and released. They also hooked up 10 cars for impound (thats expensive). This time no weapons were found and only a small amount of weed, but weapons have been found at other events. It's not uncommon for gunfire to be heard during these stunts, it gets pretty crazy, my son said.
By 4:30 a.m. Ken finished up his paper work and was due back at work at 7 a.m. for a day shift. Fortunately, his sergeant took pity on him and told him to grab a couple of more hours of sleep, so he reported back in at 9 a.m. for a the remainder of his patrol shift.
My son said this week has been fairly rough on the officers, they've average one shooting a day and had two really brutal homicides by guns, one was possibly gang related. Two nights ago his sergeant was shot at by somebody with a shotgun while he was responding to another Sideshow event. A few hours early today Ken was in pursuit of a rape suspect that was reportedly armed with a handgun. The suspect was captured when other units blocked his escape. The suspects pistol was found nearby after he tried to toss it during the short chase.
As we were talking an armed robbery went down at the Circle K, but it was in south beat and well out of his area, so we chatter another minute until he spotted this guy acting strangely in a city park. So his break was cut short by half as he went to see what was up with the weirdo in the park. The last time he spotted somebody like that they had to Taser the guy when he pulled a knife. Several weeks ago in yet another similar incident, one that appeared very minor at first, resulted in the assailant be shot when he tried to pull a weapon. You just never know.
Well, that's just police work for you, never a dull shift, it's always something. The same kind of stuff happens right here in Chico too, just not quite as often...TG.
Posted by Post Scripts at July 22, 2007 01:26 PM