A quiet police operation shows how far authorities must go to stop just one driver involved in a street takeover incident
- FHP used a helicopter to track a Dodge Charger from a street takeover to an arrest.
- The operation avoided a chase, with five patrol cars calmly boxing in the suspect.
- Highlights how resource-heavy it is to catch even one participant in such events.
Street takeovers are an issue across the USA. Different police forces are dealing with them in all sorts of ways, but Florida might have just shown us the best example yet. While the authorities didn’t catch and cite everyone at one of these illegal events, they managed to track and nab one main participant. In the process, they showed us exactly how they do it from their eyes in the sky.
More: Chicago Street Takeover Participants Show No Fear Of Authorities
The video below comes from a street takeover in the middle of the night on June 23 of this year. Florida Highway Patrol received information that over 20 vehicles were blocking an intersection at 34th Street and Bartlett Boulevard in Orange County. Rather than rolling up with the police cars they had available at the time, they sent the FHP helicopter. It silently caught the action from above.
Helicopter Eyes on the Scene
In the video from FHP, we see multiple vehicles participating at around 12:44 a.m. In addition, it’s clear that there are dozens of individuals around the cars. After one driver in a white Dodge Charger does some burnouts in plain view of the helo, it drives down the road and into a parking lot. Moments later, the crowd begins to scatter, and the Charger driver leaves the area with plenty of other cars from the scene.
While it would’ve been tough to determine which vehicle did what from the ground, the helicopter has no issue, and it tracks the driver to a gas station. After the driver leaves the business, they come up to a stoplight, and while they’re waiting at the light, officers move in.
Five police cars surround the Charger and calmly take the occupants into custody. The driver and passenger are both facing charges of participating in a street takeover.
A Glimpse at the Resources Involved
Here’s the quiet part that the video description doesn’t mention. This entire video demonstrates what it takes to catch just one person involved in the street takeover. We’ve seen several other examples of police trying to stop takeovers, and this is perhaps the most surgical of them all.
There wasn’t a high-speed chase, nobody was hurt, and authorities got their suspect. To truly put a stop to takeovers like the one we see here, it would likely take a much, much larger police force.