‘It was terrifying’: Multiple sideshows result in gunfire, assault and car fires throughout Santa Rosa

Amid shards of broken glass, loops of tire skid marks and the still-lingering smell of burnt rubber, residents near Summerfield Road and Hoen Avenue fumed with one another Monday over the weekend sideshow that took place in that intersection late Saturday into early Sunday.

This particular gathering, the largest of six sideshows police say were reported throughout Santa Rosa this weekend, drew as many as 150 vehicles and roughly 250 spectators just before midnight Saturday, according to Santa Rosa Police Sgt. Chris Mahurin.

It was also the site where two people were reportedly assaulted by sideshow spectators and a blue Corvette caught fire, officials added.

Nearby residents on Monday also said they heard fireworks, gunshots, loud revving and shouting as people hung from the spinning cars.

“It was terrifying,” said Neisha Smith, 41, who lives in one of the houses directly across from the intersection. “We kept calling 911 but the lines were so busy and they were taking forever.”

Police response

The weekend’s illicit gatherings are a continuation of an ongoing, albeit relatively new, local problem ― one which Santa Rosa Police Traffic Division Lt. David Boettger said Sonoma County law enforcement agencies are collectively working to snuff out.

One potential solution, he said, could come later this year in the form of a Santa Rosa ordinance that would penalize sideshow spectators, though the idea is in the initial stages. The Santa Rosa Police Department is working with the city manager to craft the ordinance, which could be ready as early as the end of this year, he added.

Sideshows, or dangerous vehicle demonstrations in which drivers perform various tricks including doughnuts and figure-eights in proximity to a crowd, got their start in Oakland in the ’80s. They’ve proliferated in Sonoma County since the onset of the pandemic, according to authorities.

In response, the Santa Rosa Police Department and neighboring agencies have formed an agreement on how to handle the illicit gatherings.

It relies on a strength-in-numbers approach that Boettger says has become the industry standard for dealing with sideshows, though it can be challenging to pull off when staffing is low.

“We’ll get a team of officers that will come out from two different directions … we put our lights on and we start to approach the intersection,” Boettger said. Additional officers, sometimes from neighboring agencies called in to help, wait nearby ready to pull over drivers seen speeding away from the area.

“We keep pushing them out, pushing them out until we get them out of the county, or everybody just goes home,” Boettger said.

The department adhered to that agreement on Saturday night, when the number of patrol officers was at a minimum level, Boettger said.

But as each new sideshow cropped up in a different part of the city and its outskirts, the department’s officers had to wrap up their enforcement efforts at the prior location before heading to the new gathering and reassessing their approach.

“You have to make a plan, we don’t just run into these things,” Boettger said. “We did the best that we could, and we continue to get better.”

A string of sideshows

In all, the weekend’s sideshows prompted 396 calls to Santa Rosa dispatchers over a four-hour period. That’s roughly the average number of calls the department receives in the course of a Saturday, Mahurin said.

The string of sideshows began with a gathering of 50 cars at the FoodMaxx parking lot on Sebastopol Road in Santa Rosa just before 11 p.m. Saturday, police said.

From there, the group moved to the area of Stony Point Road and Todd Avenue, where police received reports of vehicles that were doing doughnuts, drifting and driving recklessly.

The first vehicle fire of the night was reported there before the group dispersed, moving north, police said.

Another sideshow was reported at Frazier Avenue and Petaluma Hill Road at 11:45 p.m., though the group moved to Summerfield Road shortly after, police said.

That’s where dispatchers received a report of a second burning vehicle, a blue Corvette that was nearly melted by the fire. After a Santa Rosa Fire Department engine arrived at the scene, spectators climbed onto the exterior of the fire engine and took photos and videos, police said.

How the cars caught fire remains under investigation by the fire department, officials said Monday.

Given the fire and the reported assaults, most of the department’s officers were dispatched to the sideshow, which took them 45 minutes to clear, Mahurin said.

Three additional sideshows ― one on Willowside Road and Guerneville Road west of the Santa Rosa city limits, one at Fulton Road and Piner Road and the other at West Avenue and Sebastopol Road in Santa Rosa’s Roseland neighborhood ― were reported to authorities early Sunday.

While the sideshow at Fulton Road and Piner Road was underway, dispatchers received reports of a masked man, who brandished a firearm, threatening a person. There were also reports of illegal fireworks and firearms being shot.

“We don’t have any idea why he specifically brandished the firearm,” Mahurin said of the masked individual. “Right now, (what we know is) it was the pointing of a handgun to individuals in the crowd.”

The illegal gatherings were cleared by 3 a.m.

Residents demand city action

Nancy Skinner, 67, a Hoen Avenue resident, knocked on doors Monday morning to check on her neighbors and discuss potentially taking up the problem of sideshows with the city.

“I've never been like this, but I am so fired up because I'm scared,” Skinner said, adding that she was the victim of a hit-and-run in the intersection of Summerfield and Hoen last September.

“And I felt so bad for the people on the street because there's tons of kids that live in this series of five houses.”

Skinner believes the city needs to do something to prevent the sideshows from taking place in this family-filled neighborhood, which was bustling with runners and bikers Monday morning.

“The city needs to put up speed bumps or something that will stop the speeding, or put a turnabout,” she said to her neighbor Neisha Smith, who believes cameras also might help deter sideshows.

“My God it was awful,” said Smith, who described being trapped in her home and unable to reach 911 to report the car fire.

“This is a city issue that needs to be addressed,” Skinner added.

Collen Ramirez, 59, said everyone in the area could hear the sideshows, even from her house on Glencannon Street.

She said the neighbors first asked each other, “Did you hear that last night?” And then they predictably wondered together, “Why did it go on for so long?”

Ramirez suggested the city install speed barriers such as road bump disks that would inhibit the skidding and doughnuts.

City Councilmembers John Sawyer and Dianna MacDonald, whose districts straddle the Summerfield Road and Hoen Avenue intersection, could not be reached for comment Monday.

Residents nearby were not the only ones affected by the sideshows.

Peering down into one of the storm drains on Summerfield Road Monday, Aaron Nunez, an environmental specialist with the city of Santa Rosa, was inspecting the environmental impact of the weekend sideshows.

Toxins and remnants from the vehicle fire, along with tire burnouts, seemed to have ended up in the storm drains, which can travel directly into a nearby creek, majorly impacting wildlife, Nunez said.

What’s next?

Mahurin said no arrests were made over the weekend in connection with the sideshows due to low number of officers on patrol at the time, though investigators can use video footage to identify vehicles that participated.

That information can then be used to obtain a judge-approved court order to tow the involved cars and hold them for 30 days at the registered owner’s expense, he said.

“It’s really impactful,” Boettger said of the strategy, which his department is teaching to other agencies. “A lot of those people that we tow, we don't see them again at the sideshows.”

Investigators also will follow up on the assault and brandishing of a firearm reports, Mahurin added.

Santa Rosa Vice Mayor Eddie Alvarez, whose district includes the Roseland neighborhood, an unwilling host of one of the weekend’s six sideshows, applauded the department’s quick work in clearing away the illicit drivers that turned up in his district.

Still, he said, the city needs to take a more proactive approach in curbing the illicit gatherings.

“Police officer presence definitely works, they did it a few days ago,” Alvarez said. “I just don’t think it’s productive. It’s a game of Whack-A-Mole.”

In the coming weeks, Alvarez said he plans to propose that Santa Rosa City Council take up a study session on sideshows.

Though he came up an idea last year to organize sanctioned, regulated sideshow events in the city, which gained little traction, Alvarez said the increase in sideshow activity may now inspire support for his earlier idea.

“I think nine months ago, people were not ready for a progressive approach,” Alvarez said. “Are we there yet? I think we’re closer. I think people who in the past were completely against, they now might be willing.”

You can reach Staff Writer Alana Minkler at 707-526-8511 or alana.minkler@pressdemocrat.com and Staff Writer Nashelly Chavez at 707-521-5203 or at nashelly.chavez@pressdemocrat.com.