SAN ANTONIO — Chaos in southside streets.
KENS 5 received cell phone which shows dangerous burnouts happening in the middle of a neighborhood. As a result, neighbors are on edge and are frustrated. They said this happened late Saturday night at Isabel and Kalteyer Street.
A neighbor named Rose spoke to KENS 5. To say the least, she is riled up about what happened.
“They were having burnouts,” she said. “They were destroying the streets. They just want to come through here like a 100 mph.”
Rose said this happened after 10:30 p.m. Saturday night. She was already in bed but got up because of all the noise. The four-way intersection where this happened does not have stop signs, but only yield signs. She said the cars blocked the entire area not allowing cars to pass though.
“They blocked all four,” she said. “No one could get through. They were parking in our driveways.”
She said this has been an issue for years. But, said Saturday was different because it was a big group.
“They could have killed themselves or run into someone,” she said. “This is an on-going situation. We called the police department.”
However, Rose said police didn’t show up. She and her neighbors want change. They said stop signs should go up, or speed bumps. They also hope police will have a presence.
“I would hate for one of these people to end up in a body bag,” she said. “It is not only us, but it is them too. Somebody needs to come and do something about this.”
San Antonio Police released the following statement to KENS 5 about these issues.
SAPD is aware that we have occasional incidents with street racers or individuals who perform with their cars by doing donuts, burn-outs, or other displays of speed and acceleration. Typically these are isolated incidents and we ask the public to call the police and report these activities so we can respond. On the rare occasion that large numbers of car club members plan “street takeover” events we monitor these through our Fusion Center and respond accordingly. Our Street Crimes unit takes the lead on street racing at night with DWI as a back-up. We utilize all resources, including helicopters to coordinate a response and keep the public safe.
As a reminder, it is illegal to perform these actions or blocking the police or other emergency responders path. Penalties can increase up to the felony level and vehicles can be seized by Asset Seizure.
District Three City Councilwoman Phyllis Viagran represents the area. Her office told KENS 5 they received a complaint from a resident and are working with San Antonio SAFEE Officers to frequent the area more and informed its night shift to setup a patrol by the next couple of weeks. The office said multiple officers both day and night are on top of this issue. The councilwoman also released the following statement to KENS 5.
“Public Safety has always been a top priority for me and for my district whether it is tackling Domestic Violence, or illegal street racing. My office has been working diligently with Chief McManus, though the street racing task force were able to track racing takeovers and monitored possible illegal street racing activities on social media. In my district, we have a lot of rural areas as well at TX Dot HWY’s in which we need to work closely with both our Sherriff’s Dept. and Texas Highway Patrol to address this type of Illegal activity. Here in the city we are addressing our man power issues in order have the right department size for the geographical size of our city and the population living within it. We also have State laws that went into effect in 2021 addressing this issue HB2315 & SB1495 but need the judicial system to hold these racers accountable for their actions.”