Highway 99 shut down, intersections taken over as sideshows wreak havoc
Law enforcement throughout Stanislaus County was tied up for hours Saturday night and early Sunday morning as they responded to mobs of people who shut down several intersections and even Highway 99 for vehicle sideshows.
Multiple people were cited, vehicles were towed, and a Hughson teen who allegedly organized at least two of the sideshows was arrested as he tried get people to regroup at a fifth location that night.
During sideshows, participants and spectators take over the roadways. They race each other and do vehicle stunts like spinning doughnuts, then post videos of the exploits on social media, according to law enforcement.
While sideshows have been around for decades, social media has also made it easier to organize and promote them, said California Highway Patrol Officer Tom Olsen. They have increased in popularity in the Modesto area over the last few years and are now a nearly weekly occurrence, he said.
The CHP and Stanislaus County Sheriff’s Department responded to the first sideshow involving more than 100 vehicles at Maze Boulevard and Hart Road, west of Modesto, around 11:30 p.m. Saturday.
Olsen said the people came from all over the Central Valley, from Bakersfield to Sacramento, and the Bay Area. They are mostly in their teens and early 20s.
Olsen said officers wrote six citations and impounded a vehicle there, but most of the participants scattered and regrouped at locations including Highway 99 near Hammett Road near Salida, Golden State Boulevard and Keyes Road near Keyes, and on Sisk Road in Modesto.
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Modesto police got information about the sideshow on Sisk and found people in about 50 vehicles congregating near Best Buy and others beginning to block the intersection at Vintage Drive, said spokeswoman Sharon Bear.
She said they dispersed, but soon after, a 19-year-old who allegedly organized the original sideshow on Maze began live streaming on Instagram from the In-N-Out on Pelandale Avenue. He was telling followers where to go next, Bear said.
Officers arrested Johnathon Alex Wessman as he was leaving the restaurant. Bear said he admitted to organizing four previous sideshows and had a goal of doing one a month.
Wessman was arrested on suspicion of unlawful assembly, participating in a speed contest, conspiracy and committing the crimes while out on bail. He twice in December was arrested for fleeing a peace officers, according to court records.
Police say sideshows are dangerous not only for the participants who could crash and the spectators who sometimes come within inches of being hit, but for bystanders who unwittingly are caught up in them and for the officers who respond to them.
Particularly on the freeway, bystanders are trapped by the mob and unable to turn around. Olsen said anyone who finds themselves in this situation should lock their doors, call 911 and not engage any of the people involved.
Officers who respond to the sideshows often are met with hostility. At Golden State and Keyes, participants threw rocks and firecrackers at law enforcement as they moved into the scene, Olsen said.
“We have to be smart and tactful in how we deal with these situations,” he said.
Video posted on YouTube called 209 Takeover shows scenes from the sideshows at Golden State and Highway 99. In many of the scenes, it’s raining and the air is thick with smoke from burning rubber. Passengers hang out windows, people taping the stunts are walking right next to the vehicles, and spinouts send the vehicles flying toward crowds.
Olsen said sideshows have become such a serious problem in Stanislaus County that the CHP here is taking an extra step beyond arrest.
Officers are getting orders signed by judges that allow them to seize for 30 days the vehicles of people participating in reckless driving at sideshows. Olsen said the tow fees and storage fees can add up to as much as $2,000.
He said it is an effective tool, which the CHP Modesto office has started training other law enforcement to use. But some people just don’t learn or care.
“They know it’s illegal, they know they can go to jail for it, they know their car can be impounded for 30 days, they understand all that,” Olsen said. “What they don’t understand is that engaging in such activity can actually cause somebody to die out here.”
This story was originally published March 4, 2019 at 4:31 PM.
