SANTA ROSA, Calif. (KRON) — It was a wild weekend full of illegal sideshows in the City of Santa Rosa. Police told KRON4 it received close to 400 sideshow-related calls over the past the weekend.
It started Saturday at around 11:00 p.m. That is when the first reports of vehicles beginning to gather were reported to Santa Rosa Police. From that point on into early Sunday morning there were a total of seven illegal sideshows.
“Yeah, that is a lot. Usually when we start to disperse them out of areas, they end up leaving the city. This time they decided to go from the south side to the east side back to the west side,” said Sgt. Christopher Mahurin, Santa Rosa Police spokesperson.
Santa Rosa Police Sgt. Christopher Mahurin said officers could barely catch their breath before having to respond to another sideshow across town.
What sounded like a vehicle explosion, turned out to be illegal fireworks and guns being fired.
“Yeah, for sure we heard fireworks and gunshots once we got to the westside of town. Firefighters did have a hard time getting in there. Initially their truck was blocked and then they were able to get through with their engine. Then all of the sudden we started to see sideshow participants and spectators climbing on their truck and taking selfies. Didn’t seem to be damaging anything but still obstructing them from getting to the fire,” said Mahurin.
Two vehicles caught on fire after participating in the sideshows. No arrests were made and no vehicles were impounded. Santa Rosa Police said that video evidence is playing a key part in the investigation.
“And if we can identify any of the vehicles, their license plates will go into a statewide data base. If any officer in the state of California stops them, their vehicle will be impounded wherever they were contacted. Any suspects associated with the other criminal activity will be arrested,” said Mahurin.
Anyone with information is asked to contact Santa Rosa Police.
