As many as a half dozen illegal sideshows were staged in intersections around the Bay Area late Saturday night and early Sunday, including one in which screeching cars and crowds blocked traffic on the Bay Bridge and another that reportedly left a woman injured, according to authorities and media reports.
The string of sideshows started around 11 p.m., with crowds gathering to watch cars doing doughnuts at high speed in Menlo Park and Mountain View, police told KTVU, which reported that a 20-year-old woman from Pittsburg suffered a broken ankle after being hit by a car.
Oakland police said officers responded to a report of another sideshow near 42nd Avenue and International Boulevard around 2 a.m. and found nearly a hundred vehicles and dozens of spectators.
Soon after, around 2:45 a.m., police said they responded to another sideshow at Park Boulevard at Park Boulevard Way, near Interstate 580, which broke up when officers arrived.
California Highway Patrol Officer Mark Andrews said that around 3:15 a.m., about 100 vehicles were blocking westbound Bay Bridge lanes east of Treasure Island. Video posted on X shows hundreds of people gathered on the bridge shooting off fireworks and watching as vehicles spin in circles at high speed.
The CHP said two vehicles were towed and four people were detained, including two juveniles cited for allegedly aiding and abetting the sideshow, which blocked traffic for about 20 minutes.
San Francisco police said officers were unable to confirm similar pop-up sideshow activity that allegedly took place in San Francisco, at Jackson and Divisadero streets in the city’s Lower Pacific Heights neighborhood, according to a post on social media.
I woke up to this at 130am. SFPD sat a block down the st for 15 mins and did nothing pic.twitter.com/zdDqGQ387g
— David (@DavidAdler4) April 7, 2024