CHICAGO, IL – When a couple got caught in a street takeover Friday night, they didn’t have many options except to hit the accelerator and plow their way through multiple cars attempting to escape.
Chicago has a street named Wacker Drive with both an upper and lower level. The lower level is below ground, and there are few places to get to safety because it has a concrete wall on one side and the Chicago River on the other. Essentially, you are boxed in on two sides, and it’s not a comfortable feeling.
Teen takeovers and street racing have plagued the city, including drifting. Drifting is a term used to describe continually driving in circles in a place like an intersection at high speeds until the tires on the car smoke.
On Friday night, a couple in a Tesla got caught in the middle of one of these “large gatherings” on Lower Wacker. Some participants jumped on the front of a Tesla as the couple in the car tried to get past the crowd. The driver puts it in reverse, and as he backs up, the situation quickly escalates.
Mayor Johnson doesn’t like the terms “mob” or “riot,” so he’s renamed them “large gatherings.”
The kids beat on the driver’s car, and he attempts to escape. He squeezes between the first few vehicles, breaking his side mirror off, but then he gets stuck behind another car. The mob catches up and starts hitting his car again.
The driver of the Tesla decides he is going to make a path and slams on the accelerator. At one point, he strikes the side of a car so hard that it lifts the back of the Tesla off the ground. He finally made it, and you could see multiple police cars at the end of the block.
It’s like a scene in a movie of someone trying to escape a foreign country and running to the border because the police are a few hundred feet away. The problem is you have to get to the border, which, in this case, is at the end of the block.
There were some officers in the crowd, but they were way outnumbered, and the rules of engagement have become very complicated for law enforcement in Chicago. As much as you might like to blame this on the Chicago police, I can tell you first that they are as frustrated as the rest of us, and their hands are tied. A perfect example is Chicago’s pursuit policy, which might as well be titled “wave goodbye policy” as the criminal drives off.
An officer from the NYPD commented on the video and said, “Looks like the cops have given up. Do you blame them?”
You really can’t because it’s not the rank and file. One CPD officer said, “Didn’t think this place could be any more f*cked. Stupid me.”
“No one wants this job. There’s no respect for police anymore, especially in a city like Chicago. Not even our leadership respects us. We have almost every single weekend over the summer canceled due to some BS event that people who can’t behave attend.” Said another officer from CPD.
My comment to one was: You and I both know it’s only going to get worse, and the reply, “Police have zero support. We get involved in a situation like that, it’s a no-win. We end up shooting or hurting someone. We look bad. We stand by and watch the guy beat the sh*t out of him. We look bad. We don’t lock the guy up for beating the shit out of him. We look bad. All!”
There are plenty of other comments like that, but that’s enough to get the idea.
When you encounter a similar situation, your options to defend yourself are slim because the mob vastly outnumbers you, and it is doubtful that opening fire will solve the problem. Plus, you stand a good risk of landing in jail.
What you do have is a few thousand-pound projectile you’re behind the wheel of, and as you can see from the guy driving the Tesla, he made a path. Your best bet is always to escape to safety when possible and not engage the threat if you feel your life is in danger.
Read the original story: Tesla Driver Hits Multiple Cars Trying To Escape Chicago Street Takeover Mob
