SAN DIEGO — A dangerous scene caught on camera – drivers taking over a popular Mission valley intersection, doing donuts with people stand inches away from the skidding cars.
San Diego Police say they started getting 911 calls around 7:15 p.m. Sunday night. “They have the road and highway closed off,” a dispatcher can be heard telling officers.
The drivers and spectators blocked off Camino De La Reina at Hotel Circle.
Some even stopped to watch from above on a freeway transition ramp off Interstate 8.
“At least 100 vehicles involved and kids are in the middle of the cars doing donuts,” the dispatcher says. “And they’re lighting fireworks.”
The participants performed a move called drifting. It’s a controlled sideways skid, but with so many people so close to the spinning cars, things quickly got out of control. A 911 caller reported a pedestrian getting hit by a car.
As soon as police arrived, everyone took off. The victim was seen hopping into the passenger seat of a car that drove away from the scene. At the intersection Monday afternoon, there are still skid marks everywhere. We also spotted empty alcohol containers and litter from fireworks.
Jesi Sasaki lives in Mission Valley. She missed Sunday night's craziness, but says the same thing happened there about a month ago. That time, she was driving in the wrong place at the wrong time.
“Everyone was just normally coming to this light and all of a sudden, they stopped and everyone got out except for us,” she said. “We're like - ok - what's happening now?”
Jesi says it was scary because she had no idea what was going on.
“We didn't know what to do because we were behind a parked car and there was cars behind us and we couldn't really back up, but then there was a car that came next to us and I could tell she was kind of like - what's going on and she just kind of zoomed in and so we just followed her, but we were afraid we were going to hit somebody because there were so many people walking around.”
Police detained two people Sunday night, but it's not clear if they were in the car that hit the pedestrian. And since that person took off, officers don’t know the extent of their injuries.
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