Oakland Deals With Multiple Street Takeovers, Several Cars Torched

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Police in Oakland played whack-a-mole with several street takeovers on the night of Friday, April 12. And while the local news said “several” suspects were arrested, that’s not much considering how many people were participating in the illegal gatherings.

Man brutally attacked at Oakland street takeover.

Yet again, torching cars was a big feature of these street takeover gatherings, as shown by local station KTVU. This complete destruction of vehicles at takeovers seems to be on the rise. Sadly, it makes sense since many of the cars used in takeovers are stolen and so participants are eager to destroy the evidence.

We think it’s fair to say Oakland Police Department isn’t being given the necessary resources to deal with street takeovers and other crimes in the city.

According to local reporter Henry K. Lee, who posted videos of the numerous street takeovers or sideshows on X, police dispersed them rapidly, some as quickly as ten minutes. But instead of stamping out the fire, they just spread it to other areas.

New takeovers at different intersections popped up almost as quickly as police broke them up. We’d be willing to bet a lot of the same people were at all of them, so breaking them up didn’t act as a deterrence from these kids to just go elsewhere and do it again.