Police around the country call them by different names. Some call them sideshows. Some call them street takeovers. And the charges sometimes include the phrases "exhibition driving" or "reckless driving exhibition." These happen pretty routinely in big cities like Los Angeles and it's not uncommon for people to get hurt.
I'm not going to make you look at some of these videos because many of them are horrific. Honestly, I watch video from the Ukraine-Russia war every week and some of those are bad but usually the deaths happen beneath a cloud of smoke. Not so with street takeovers. People get tossed into the air or run over. They have limbs that have been snapped in two. There's one circulating now of a cop getting crushed between two cars. I don't know if he lived but if so it's amazing. My advice is don't go looking, you don't need these images floating around in your head.
These things are always dangerous and always involve a lot of illegal behavior and yet police haven't really come up with a solution. And just to be clear, it's not just LA where this happens. It's all over the country but it seems to be worse here.
Over the weekend, there was a sideshow in a city called Bellflower which is part of LA County. This particular event distinguished itself by escalating to the looting of a nearby liquor store.
A-Z Market in Bellflower was hit around 3:30 a.m. Saturday as a street takeover unfolded nearby, with roughly 100 to 150 vehicles reportedly blocking the surrounding streets and intersection, according to the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department.
Surveillance footage showed three unidentified suspects using power tools to break through the store’s front window and cut the lock on its security gate.
Once inside, the suspects cleared the way for 40 to 60 more people to storm the family-owned business and ransack it, according to authorities and the store owners.
The looters were inside for only about two minutes, but the damage was devastating.
This was definitely not a spontaneous incident. Nearly all of the people who broke in were wearing full face masks which no one is wearing in the middle of August in LA County unless they're planning to rob someone. Also the power tools used to break in didn't just happen. Probably this was a group of people who planned the theft to coincide with the sideshow. Here's the video:
Another Southland store is broken into and ransacked by scores of hooded and masked criminals during a street takeover. This time, A-Z Market in Bellflower is looted. The urgent effort to stop the takeovers turned burglaries - Tonight at 11 from ABC7. https://t.co/WL6nf70Zp8 pic.twitter.com/B3LgRGzNgt
— ABC7 Eyewitness News (@ABC7) August 18, 2026
Police did respond but were vastly outnumbered by the crowd and of course they were too late. The thieves just blended in and disappeared.
The suspects were inside the store for approximately two minutes before leaving and blending into the nearby street takeover crowd.
Deputies estimate the value of the damage and loss of inventory to be close to $30,000.
“Honestly, I just can’t get the image out of my head, 50 people in my business, ransacking the place, destroying the business, taking everything that I’ve worked so hard for, we’ve worked so hard for, me and my dad and my brother,” one of the owners told KTLA.
The family-owned store has security and alarms. They’re been robbed before but never imagined a scene like this. “I’m just so out of words that the situation actually happened. Please don’t do this to anyone else. Please don’t. Like, it really hurts us business owners. As a family business, it really hurts.”
No arrests have yet been made for the burglary. Deputies issued multiple citations for the street takeover but could not connect anyone cited with the incident inside the business, they said.
I guess you could argue this is just a burglary but I don't think so. This was looting. What's the difference? Really just the context. Usually a burglary involves a handful of people working quietly. Looting is just burglary in a situation where people sense that law and order has broken down. That could be after a natural disaster or it could be during a riot. But the idea is to take advantage of the fact that police are occupied. Looting also often involves a large crowd, as happened here.
This isn't the first time a takeover has been used as cover for another crime. An AutoZone was also looted earlier this month in LA.
Investigators are asking the public for help identifying more than two dozen people suspected of burglarizing an AutoZone in East Los Angeles during two consecutive nights of street takeovers.
The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department is circulating photos of 27 people seen earlier this month at the auto supply business at Atlantic and Olympic boulevards.
The first incident took place on Aug. 8 at around 2:22 a.m., when a suspect wearing a hoodie with a skull and the words “Wild One” shattered AutoZone’s glass doors, according to one of the sheriff‘s bulletins. Ten additional suspects then entered the store, taking part in a “coordinated, mob-like burglary,” the bulletin said.
And that brings me back to what I was saying about sideshows/street takeovers. Police are going about this all wrong. These are not minor disturbances where the goal should be to get people to move along using as few officers as possible. Street takeovers are riots. Break-ins connected with street takeovers are looting. And both crimes ought to be handled as such.
If 200 people show up, don't send 2 or 3 squad cars, send in 100 officers, surround them and arrest all the drivers. Suspend their licenses and seize their cars. Then collect IDs from all of the attendees before allowing them to leave. Send them a citation for public disturbance or anything else you can charge them with from public drunkenness to having an illegal weapon. Let them know if they're caught again they'll be arrested.
This has gone on long enough. It's time to actually make some effort to stop this, not just sweep it along to another intersection on another Saturday night.
