Valley police agencies team up to combat street racing, intersection takeovers

PHOENIX – Valley police agencies are working together to combat a recent rise in intersection takeovers and street racing.

“For a while there, we kind of saw a dip in the activity. However, we just kind of started noticing within the recent month or so activity picking up,” Sgt. Hector Encinas of the Tempe Police Department told KTAR News 92.3 FM on Wednesday.

Tempe police received intel about planned multiple takeovers on April 22 and coordinated with their counterparts in Phoenix and Mesa for an enforcement operation that night.

“With the three agencies involved, we had about 12 vehicles towed, about 20 different criminal arrests, about 19 traffic violations,” Encinas said.

Police released videos showing the scope of the incidents.

“You can see that at several of the intersections there’s a hundred-plus people. You have various vehicles going in the middle of the intersection doing doughnuts and all kinds of other stuff,” Encinas said.

“It’s very, very disruptive and just a huge threat for public safety.”

In addition to traffic-related issues, police are worried about participants being armed.

“They will specifically tell people to conceal weapons, which, again, is very concerning and alarming,” Encinas said.

“There’s lots of things that that come out of this. It’s not just people doing doughnuts.”

KTAR News 92.3 FM’s Balin Overstolz-McNair contributed to this report.

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