By Mark Schlinkmann
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
ST. LOUIS — Groups of people engaged in reckless stunt driving at six locations across the city Sunday night, spurring police to use spike strips to slow down or disable 40 to 50 of the vehicles.
One juvenile who was in a crash near one of the sites, a lot at Second Street and Shenandoah Avenue, fled on foot but later turned himself in to police, said police spokesman Mitch McCoy at a Monday news conference.
No one else was arrested, McCoy said.
“The disregard for traffic laws, taking over our city streets, will be met with full force,” McCoy said. “We were strategic in how we responded, which is why we have up to 50 vehicles that have flat tires today.”
McCoy said the events, sometimes referred to as “slide shows,” began about 8:50 p.m. when police got 911 calls from the area of Leona Street and Holly Hills Boulevard in the south side’s Holly Hills neighborhood.
Video taken by concerned residents of the normally quiet neighborhood showed cars sliding in circles and burning out their tires in the intersection.
McCoy said many in the group then moved on to a large parking lot at South Kingshighway and Christy Boulevard, then to the lot at Second and Shenandoah.
Later, police said, drivers turned up at Ninth Street and LaBeaume Avenue north of downtown and then at two sites farther north — at Carrie Avenue and North Broadway and at Hall Street and Gimblin Road.
McCoy said he didn’t know how many people participated at each location because drivers will often leave the group while others join in. He said he heard one estimate of dozens involved at the first site in the Holly Hills neighborhood.
State Rep. Steve Butz, D- St. Louis, who lives in the Holly Hills area, posted videos of the initial event Sunday night on social media, referring to it as “complete lawlessness” and “all hell breaking out.” He said the videos were taken by others in the neighborhood.
In his post, he initially complained that “no cops ever showed!” and that it was an example of why he voted to return the city police department to state control.
McCoy said police had headed to the Holly Hills site but were diverted en route to an unrelated traffic crash at Hampton and Gravois avenues in which a firefighter was in need of aid.
A police commander arrived at the Holly Hills site at 9:13 p.m., McCoy said, but the group of reckless drivers already had left.
The commander then assigned officers to go to the lot on South Kingshighway, McCoy said, because that had been a gathering spot in the past for such activity.
“Lights and sirens were activated” at that location by police and the group left, he said. Those in the group fled police from the Second and Shenandoah site “at a high rate of speed,” driving extremely recklessly, McCoy said. Police also went to the other locations reported, McCoy said.
Butz, who attended the news conference, said afterward that he was more satisfied with the police response than he had been initially. But he said more needs to be done to deal with the issue.
While using spike strips is important, Butz said, “it would have been nice to catch a few of the perpetrators.”
McCoy said this wasn’t the first instance of such activity, which he said often takes place on Sunday nights.
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