Gun-Toting Street Takeover Shocks Memphis

We’ve seen this before, but it’s still disturbing.

Two Dodge Chargers shut down a section of road in Memphis this month, but that wasn’t what shocked the city. What did cause a stir was two young men hanging out of the windows of one of the Mopars, each of them brandishing a firearm. While we’ve seen this sort of thing before in other areas, mostly California, it seems people in Memphis are pretty shocked at the threatening nature of this particular street takeover.

Learn which Texas city has seen street takeovers really spin out of control here.

Takeover events, also called sideshows, are by nature dangerous affairs. While they can involve taking over an empty parking lot, many involve shutting down a section of road or an entire intersection while participants so burnouts, donuts, and other “tricks” to impress themselves and the gathering crowd.

One motivation for these stunts is social media clicks. Kids will take videos and post them on TikTok, YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, and any other platform to get credibility, likes, and sometimes even for monetary gain.

Street takeovers are dangerous for more than the obvious reasons. While collisions between cars or with pedestrians are always a threat, these events attract other criminal activity like flies to a corpse. Drug deals, human trafficking, violent attacks, and homicides can all happen in and immediately around takeovers. That’s why some cities have taken extreme measures to smack these organized yet chaotic events down.

Hopefully Memphis wakes up to the danger street takeovers truly pose. Just a quick search of YouTube revealed a long list of street takeovers held in the city, the participants openly bragging about their activity. We’ll include a few so you can see what we’re talking about, just be warned the videos aren’t safe for work.

Also included is a local newscast about the gun-toting street takeover participants. In it a reporter interviews a driving instructor about what to do if you encounter one of these events. She gives solid adivce, like not acting aggressive and agitating participants since they’re often armed and unafraid to use their weapons for you simply annoying them.