\u201cOne cop came up and started threatening the people who parked on the sidewalk,\u201d said Rae, an eyewitness, who asked to be identified by a nickname. \u201cWe were having a good, peaceful time, with music, food from Corner Donuts, everyone relaxing, but one cop came up and started threatening the people who parked on the sidewalk.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
By this time, the event had grown significantly beyond its original scope. Jonathan Swizz, one of the hosts of the event, told Shout News that he estimated there was a crowd of \u201c30 people, 20-ish cars.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cOne cop came up and started threatening the people who parked on the sidewalk,\u201d said Rae. Multiple eyewitnesses confirmed there was a brief back-and-forth exchange with a member of law enforcement before the officer left the scene.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Shout News reached out to law enforcement command multiple times for comment, but has yet to receive a response as of press time. According to policy, Incident Reports must be filed within 48 hours; additional time is often required to examine those reports and prepare a statement for press.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Legion Square is a high-traffic area of the city, and is often host to high speed police chases as suspects evade arrest at reckless speeds. It\u2019s also a major center of commerce, with tons of foot traffic. According to public policy experts, Los Santos is significantly less functional when particularly congested, potentially leading to issues like traffic jams, package delays, and incidents of road rage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
All suspects agree that the vehicles were illegally parked. What happened next is less clear.<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n According to multiple people who spoke with Shout News, approximately ten minutes later the officer returned and began the process of towing cars back to Hayes Depot. Rae was among the aggrieved celebrants who decided to protest the decision by sprinting to Hayes and claiming their vehicles from impound. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201c[The officer] walked up to me, he demanded my ID, I flipped him off,\u201d said Rae. \u201cHe pulled his gun and told me to get out of my car. At that point, I drove away, started doing donuts. Being stupid, having fun. They followed me to the other side of Legion and rammed me into a wall at 80MPH. They kept repeatedly ramming me, yelling at me that if I didn\u2019t stop running I was going to be shot.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Rae is \u201cpretty sure\u201d that the officers were pointing weapons at her; she was shortly thereafter tazed and arrested. She suggests her arrest may have been targeted due to a post she made on Yeeter about the towing conflict. Ultimately, she pled guilty to Reckless Endangerment and Evading Arrest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n At this point, a response team of officers from various law departments were on scene in Legion Square. Party-goers continued to protest, pulling cars out of Hayes Depot at astonishing speeds that must have surely taxed the hard-working staff who handle impounds for the entire state. A few had approached members of law enforcement, verbally accosting the officer for an explanation of his actions. Eyewitnesses say a party-goer pulled a revolver, and the police pulled in return, but I heard multiple accounts as to who fired first and whether the shot was justified. Likely, only the shooter and their assailant know.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI saw rounds whiz and fly past me while shooting from their cars,\u201d wrote Oscar Steinbeck-Wren, who later confirmed to Shout News that he had been hit in the crossfire between party-goers and police. Steinbeck-Wren did not receive medical care from law enforcement and traveled to Pillbox, where he was treated by Dr. Zelig. Harvey Taylor tweeted: \u201cSome trooper shot me when I was across the street and out of the way, whilst in my car with no weapon ):\u201d Shout News was unable to contact Mr. Taylor and confirm his account or determine whether he received medical care.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Zac Valentino was one witness on scene. \u201cAfter the guy shot at officers, I think he might have incapacitated one of the officers, after which the officers were securing the scene –\u201d Mr. Valentino pauses to add in a generous helping of sarcastic air quotes. \u201cI was at the food truck, out of the way from the injured officer and the suspect, and I was told to leave Legion Square two to three times while I tried to explain I had been struck by one of their officer’s bullets.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n While Valentino was wearing an armor plate, and only suffered bruising to the lower torso, he believes that the injury could have been much worse. After threats of arrest, he ultimately hired a taxi to take him to Pillbox Hospital, where he was treated and discharged by Dr. Zelig. Other members of the public confirmed with Shout News that they or a friend had been shot during the skirmish.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The conflict was hotly debated throughout, with members of the public arguing with law enforcement during both the build up and aftermath of the violence. \u201cShooting into a crowd of civilians is fucking WILD!\u201d wrote Amelia Swizz, one of the co-hosts of the event. \u201cFUCK PD!\u201d Immediately after, Roy Gomer yeeted \u201cDaily reminder that towing a parked car is not justification to shoot police.\u201d Shout News contacted Ms. Wierzbicka for comment. She replied via email, writing: \u201cI am unable to confirm if any complaint has been filed to any other supervisor. At this time I have not taken any complaint personally in regards to Legion Square on June 23rd, 2024.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Politipoll has shown that public distrust of police is at a historic low, only beginning to trudge out of last poll\u2019s zenith in approval. \u201cTasing someone out of a fun car for doing donuts at a fun event is NOT helping your guys\u2019 rep man lol,\u201d yeeted Lucas Kohn-Kovalenko. Musician Jason Tanners, yeeted as well, posting: \u201cGod fucking forbid some cars were illegally parked. Now people are shot because the police didn\u2019t exercise any discretion by maybe idk sticking around to watch over the meet? Instead there was unnecessary escalation. Fuck you all.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the aftermath of the incident, some members of the public are advocating for additional non-lethal and protest training. It\u2019s clear how this powderkeg of a situation built up. It remains to be seen what the police\u2019s response will be to this incident — or whether they plan to acknowledge it at all. Shout News has reached out to specific members of the police who were named by the public, and will update should we receive a response.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" An impromptu car show and street festival turned violent on June 23, shocking the public and leading to outrage on Twitter. At approximately 3:30PM, staff for the nautical tour company Float \u2018N\u2019 Soak set up an impromptu and unplanned event at Legion Square. The event quickly grew, with local musicians putting on performances, and businesses […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2160,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"advgb_blocks_editor_width":"","advgb_blocks_columns_visual_guide":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"ppma_author":[30],"class_list":["post-2159","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"author_meta":{"display_name":"Becks Lawson","author_link":"https:\/\/shout.newdayrp.com\/index.php\/author\/beckslawson\/"},"featured_img":"https:\/\/shout.newdayrp.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/Untitled-design-2024-06-28T224840.633-300x169.png","jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/shout.newdayrp.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/Untitled-design-2024-06-28T224840.633.png","coauthors":[{"link":"https:\/\/shout.newdayrp.com\/index.php\/author\/beckslawson\/","display_name":"Becks Lawson"}],"tax_additional":{"categories":{"linked":["News<\/a>"],"unlinked":["News<\/span>"]}},"comment_count":"4","relative_dates":{"created":"Posted 2 years ago","modified":"Updated 2 years ago"},"absolute_dates":{"created":"Posted on 29 June 2024","modified":"Updated on 29 June 2024"},"absolute_dates_time":{"created":"Posted on 29 June 2024 2:06 PM","modified":"Updated on 29 June 2024 8:18 PM"},"featured_img_caption":"","series_order":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"authors":[{"term_id":30,"user_id":2,"is_guest":0,"slug":"beckslawson","display_name":"Becks Lawson","avatar_url":{"url":"https:\/\/shout.newdayrp.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/Untitled-design-2024-02-05T222616.315.png","url2x":"https:\/\/shout.newdayrp.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/Untitled-design-2024-02-05T222616.315.png"},"1":"","2":"","3":"","4":"","5":"","6":"","7":"","8":""}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shout.newdayrp.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2159","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shout.newdayrp.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shout.newdayrp.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shout.newdayrp.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shout.newdayrp.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2159"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/shout.newdayrp.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2159\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2168,"href":"https:\/\/shout.newdayrp.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2159\/revisions\/2168"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shout.newdayrp.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2160"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shout.newdayrp.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2159"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shout.newdayrp.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2159"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shout.newdayrp.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2159"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shout.newdayrp.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=2159"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/shout.newdayrp.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/Untitled-design-2024-06-28T225657.310-1024x576.png\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\nBack-and-Forth<\/strong><\/h2><\/div>\n\n\n\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/shout.newdayrp.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/Untitled-design-2024-06-29T000102.928-1024x576.png\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\nAftermath attention<\/strong><\/h2><\/div>\n\n\n\n
Another officer, Cherry Wierzbicka, stated that the police needed to execute the tow job because of death threats issued towards Public Works. She later welcomed complaints from the public, writing: \u201cIf someone truly believes an Officer is abusing their power, they\u2019re welcome to file a complaint with myself or any other Supervisor.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n