CLEVELAND — It is a dangerous game in Cleveland where drivers take over intersections and shopping center parking lots.
The car meets and street takeovers happened week after week in the city. News 5 has shown you videos of the chaos, the burnouts and property damage.
In some cases, people have been shot. People are begging the police to put a stop to it.
News 5 Investigators spoke with a 17-year-old girl who was shot and nearly died after attending a car meet on the east side of Cleveland. No one has been arrested in that case.
The girl and her mother asked that we blur their faces with the shooter still on the streets. She just turned 17 years old, and after our interview, her mother tended to the unthinkable. Bullet wounds.
Her daughter is marked for life, and the memory of it all is haunting.
“I really thought I was going to die that day,” the teen said.
She was shot at the Lee Harvard shopping center overnight on Aug. 10.
RELATED: 4 hurt in 2nd shootout in same Cleveland community in 1 week
Her story may be rare, but the circumstances are not. Car meets and street takeovers are a pastime in Cleveland both on the east and west sides of town.
Through public records requests, News 5 Investigators obtained 911 calls from several of the incidents this summer.
Neighbors lose sleep and their patience.
“I just called 911 and they said to call when the shooting starts, well the shooting started,” said one caller.
The burnouts are for entertainment to post on social media. They’ve happened underneath bridges and the chandelier at Playhouse Square.
Greg Gacka captured one takeover from his bedroom window, looking down at W. 25th and Lorain.
“So there you can see all the tire marks,” Gacka said.
One jolted Gacka and neighbors awake on Sept. 15.
Gacka says there was loud music and cars doing donuts in the intersection and it was
shut down in all directions.
“The police aren’t doing anything; they're outnumbered, probably outgunned so send more,” said one caller.
It wasn’t the first time this summer.
“I don’t want to be used to it, I think it should stop,” Gacka said.
The meeting locations are posted on social media.
“As soon as one gets shut down by police, you look at your phone and there’s already another location. Everyone's already going to the next location,” the 17-year-old said.
It was overnight Aug. 10 when the teen went to the Lee Harvard car meet.
“I was just at the wrong place at the wrong time with the wrong people,” she said.
She had a bad feeling but said someone else was driving her, and they’d already been to several other meets.
“And we were just dancing and listening to music having a good time,” said the teen.
About twenty minutes in, bullets started flying. The teen was grazed in the neck. The 9mm bullet went through her shoulder and out her arm.
“All I felt was like the power of the bullet just pushed my shoulder back,” she said. Three others were hit and survived.
“They said if I was like just an inch forward the bullet that grazed my neck would have just gone through my neck and I would have just died right there,” she said.
Some car meets can be deadly.
In July, a 21-year-old was shot and killed at a Steelyard meet.
“So many emotions, just lucky she’s here,” the teen’s mother said.
News 5 Investigators questioned top brass and played the 911 calls for Police Chief Annie Todd.
I asked Chief Todd what goes through her mind.
“So for me it's, it’s terrifying... I know we have a duty and responsibility to those residents to make sure they feel peace in their home,” Todd said.
Over Memorial Day weekend, people recorded drivers drifting around a ring of fire at Playhouse Square. In a separate takeover, a car circled a police cruiser.
Video by News 5 staff from Buckeye near E. 116th St. shows police driving up, squawking sirens and those responsible simply driving away.
I asked Chief Todd if they are outnumbered and outgunned.
“I don’t know that,” Todd said.
Chief Todd says they try to get ahead of this trend by researching social media at the Real Time Crime Center and Fusion Center.
"But we’re not going to always catch them. We’re not always going to find out about it,” Todd said.
Todd says if there is a crowd larger than they can handle, they aren’t going in, "They're going to call for assistance and they're going to call for a supervisor.”
“I applaud your efforts for safety in this city but it’s these kinds of events that may not result in death but still affect the quality of life in this city,” Gacka said.
I asked Chief Todd how much of a priority these are.
“This is a priority. I can tell you 100 percent it’s a priority,” Todd said.
According to Todd, they are looking at what other cities are doing, which could mean rumble strips for intersections here and are working with shopping centers to create obstacles.
“It absolutely needs to stop,” said First National Realty Partners Vice President of Operations Dwight Robertson.
News 5 Investigators uncovered what property owners are doing at Lee Harvard shopping center. Robertson says they upgraded lighting, plan to install barriers and just added high-tech cameras that Cleveland police can tap into.
He says they also offered up a vacant storefront for police.
“In particular in dealing with these meetups a police presence is truly needed to disrupt them. It’s beyond the capabilities of onsite security guards,” Robertson said.
In the teen’s case, the pain will subside.
“They kind of itch.. Because they’re healing,” her mom told her. “I never knew that she went to these car meets."
The teen says she’ll never attend a car meet again.
“It’s just crazy how my night went from having fun with my friends to I could have died and I could have never seen my family again and that’s really scary,” she said.
Todd says investigators are making progress with identifying the drivers responsible for the takeovers at W. 25th and Lorain.
You can watch the entire interview with Chief Todd below:
