The Los Angeles Police Department has arrested 20-year-old Erick Romero Quintana, who lives in Paramount, accusing him of organizing quite a few illegal street takeover events in Southern California. In fact, they allege Quintana is one of the largest street takeover organizers in the area, so taking him out should strike quite the blow to the movement.
Last weekend was busy for street takeovers across the country.
Back on February 7 at around 5 am, the Street Racing Task Force executed a search warrant at a house in Paramount, nabbing Quintana. In a press release about his arrest, LAPD says the young man has over 70,000 followers on social media, which he uses to inform them about street takeovers.
As we’ve seen repeatedly, the street takeovers have escalated in not only scale and frequency, but also violence. While that hasn’t shocked us, other people who have been ignoring the phenomenon as “just kids having fun” were shocked when a Mexican bakery was looted during one.
Other smash-and-grab robberies, plus people being assaulted and even killed at takeover events seems to have caused a public outcry. That might have helped influence the decision to go after Quintana.
Some might be shocked at how someone so young could be accused or organizing large scale illegal events like these. With the power of social media, we’ve seen an explosion of youth crime lately, including kids as young as eight stealing cars. It’s a serious problem that requires more than just tougher policing, although that might be an integral part of the long term solution.
Quintana has been hit with multiple felony charges for his role in allegedly organizing street takeovers. We’ve seen other organizers in different parts of the country also charged with felonies and are glad more cities have taken a hard stance against these events. With Los Angeles being one of the hotspots and alleged areas of the movement’s genesis, this development will hopefully mark the beginning of the end for street takeovers.
Images via X
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A bakery in Los Angeles got looted this morning after a street takeover.
— Paul A. Szypula 🇺🇸 (@Bubblebathgirl) January 3, 2024
Instead of investing in police to deal with these hooligans, California just gave free health care to illegal aliens.pic.twitter.com/viwrWlDWxi
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