In a disturbing escalation of street takeovers, downtown LA witnessed two destructive events that left behind burning cars and a vandalized bus over the past three days.
The latest takeover occurred Monday morning at the intersection of Olympic Boulevard and Flower Street where participants vandalized a Metro bus with graffiti while passengers were still on board.
The crowd also tagged another nearby building with graffiti and attempted to break into a Starbucks on 9th Street.
Just two days before the incident, another takeover took place around 3 a.m. Saturday near the 10 freeway at 18th and Main Streets.
The massive takeover, which attracted 100 vehicles and 200 spectators, according to a witness, culminated in two cars being set on fire.
“These takeovers are getting out of hand,” the witness who declined to be identified said. “Police didn’t get here until 40 minutes, 45 minutes after [the takeover started.]”
Despite the LAPD having a task force in place to address these issues, no arrests were made in either of the incidents, as an unknown number of suspects took off.
Earl Ofari-Hutchinson, a community member, was frustrated by the lack of accountability.
“You’ve got to make arrests, you’ve got to impound and you’ve got to mean it,” he said, “Street takeovers are organized. They don’t just happen. When you have hundreds of people that converge on an area, that’s an organization. With law enforcement, they have to be equally organized. Unfortunately I have not seen that.”
The LAPD has yet to comment on these recent incidents or their plans to address the ongoing issue of street takeovers in Los Angeles.