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San Antonio police respond to violent street takeovers with arrests

We asked SAPD Chief William McManus about it at Monday night's violent crime reduction plan meeting.

SAN ANTONIO — Dramatic video was released out of Austin from over the weekend showing an incident where one officer was injured, and several police cars damaged in a so-called "street takeover."

Two people were also arrested in connection to the incident.

These incidents are becoming more common across the country, including right here in San Antonio.

We asked SAPD Chief William McManus about it at Monday night's violent crime reduction plan meeting.

He told us he spoke with Austin police and it turns out SAPD actually tipped them off about that street takeover, but he couldn't tell us how San Antonio police knew about the plans because they use the same tactics to drive offenders off here.

Just last month, several vehicles blocked off I-10 near Callaghan Road with drivers doing donuts.

Witnesses say at least one person fired a gun into the air.

Then a couple weeks later, an 18-year-old was shot and killed after a car meetup on the west side.

SAPD says they have a team ready to go at a moment's notice to respond to these street takeovers.

"It's not an easy situation to deal with," said Chief McManus. "But, in the last couple of weekends – and actually almost every time they are here – we make a number of arrests, we impound a number of cars, we seize a number of guns, we issue a number of citations. And that seems to take the wind out of them a little bit, once we start doing that."

UTSA is set to release data about the crime reduction program at the end of this month. And McManus says there's also a study underway looking into the staffing levels at SAPD.  



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