Southwest Side neighbors say they're plagued with car stunt rallies weekend after weekend while places like Lower Wacker Drive get the attention
CHICAGO (CBS) -- New video shows a car slamming into a man as he watches car stunts in a parking lot on the Southwest Side this past weekend – in just the latest car crew chaos across the city.
As CBS 2's Jermont Terry reported Monday night, people who live in that section of Chicago have been complaining for quite some time about the dangerous stunts.
Tire marks in the Ford City Mall parking lot at 76th Street and Cicero Avenue serve as proof of what people in the area say is an ongoing nuisance. They see huge crowds and hear engines revving every weekend – and they are asking when these crews will get shut down.
Over the weekend in a different part of the city, drivers did donuts and stunts in cars around a ring of fire set with people in the middle of it. A crew of nearly 100 blocked Lower Wacker Drive at Columbus Drive early Sunday morning.
"They're putting themselves and the residents, wherever community they're in, in danger," said Gen Vazquez.
Vazquez lives on the Southwest Side near the Ford City Mall.
"It's not the first time I've seen a video similar to this," she said of the downtown video over the weekend.
It was in the Ford city parking lot where images from March also showed rings of fire, a packed parking lot, and cars doing donuts.
"It happened, you know, once this past weekend on Lower Wacker Drive?" Vazquez said. "We've been dealing with this three times a week, at least, every single weekend."
Vazquez and her Scottsdale and West Lawn community neighbors say they call 911.
"You'll hear the burnouts all night and they throw fireworks at night," she said.
But the crowds, and the danger that come with them do not go away.
There are also plenty of close calls. In a strip mall parking lot about at 71st Street and Pulaski Road, about a mile and a half northeast of Ford City, a car is seen hitting someone. And watching places more than those in the crowd at risk.
"Just how they're doing burnouts here - they do those in the main street, where people are not being involved in this can also get hurt," Vazquez said.
Yet after complaining for months each summer, Vazquez says the crowd that keeps her and her neighbors up at night – mostly at Ford City Mall – keeps coming back.
"Unless you move, there's like really no getting away from this," she said.
Yet, one day after the Lower Wacker Drive takeover, police Supt. David Brown talked of action.
"We are looking into who we can hold accountable there, but I think that speaks more to the need to add more resources to our downtown - particularly during those overnight hours," Brown said.
"It seems we don't get the same attraction and attention that those neighborhoods get - and I think that's the problem," Vazquez said.
CBS 2's Terry is told Ford City Mall and any strip mall becomes a constant popup for the car stunts.
On Tuesday, Southwest Side community leaders are meeting with Chicago Police, the Chicago Department of Transportation, and aldermen from the 13th and 18th wards to try to figure out a way to regulate the crews.
They fear it will only get worse in the weeks to come.
