INDIANAPOLIS — More than a dozen people were arrested this weekend at street takeover events around the city.
According to Indiana State Police and IMPD numbers, a total of 14 people were arrested across multiple street takeover and spinning events.
"A lot of these times we are reacting to these incidents – we want to be proactive, we want to identify where these incidents are taking place and identify those people involved and finding ways to disrupt those activities," Lieutenant Shane Foley with IMPD said.
Street takeover and spinning have been a focal point in patrols for the departments recently.
Street takeovers happened at multiple locations around the city, most notably at the intersection of 27th Street and MLK Street. IMPD shared video with WRTVfrom a street takeover incident that happened Sept. 10th. In that case, IMPD said made an arrest in connection to that incident.
"This weekend we worked with state police and other law enforcement agencies to identify those people involved," Lt. Foley added.
At the locations this weekend, IMPD and ISP recovered five stolen handguns and three stolen vehicles. IMPD was led on one pursuit from a street takeover locations.
"We want to know where these events are taking place – if people have information they can call Crime Stoppers," Lt. Foley told WRTV.
The street takeovers are not just impacting police, but they are also affecting community members. Crews could be seen near the intersection of 27th Street and MLK Street Monday Morning cleaning up trash from this weekend’s incident.
It’s just dangerous – I’ve never seen anything like that where they can close the streets off,” Kenneth Peavler said.
Peavler says that he lives nearby where one of this weekend’s street takeovers took place. He said that he could hear the gunshots from his bedroom window.
“They are tearing up the streets – doing doughnuts with the cars and motorcycles,” Peavler added. His message to the community, is just to be careful before someone gets seriously hurt.
“Be careful and don’t join this rock block thing whatever it is, it’s not worth it. It’s not worth going to jail – it’s not worth getting killed,” Peavler concluded.
The department reminds citizens to call police when they see a takeover or spinning event occurring.
