IMPD Chief Urges Lawmakers To Pass Bill Cracking Down On Spinning

Source: INDIANA STATE POLICE / Indiana State Police

STATEHOUSE — The city of Indianapolis has had to implement major crackdowns on illegal street racing, spinning, and street take overs over the last few years.

Chris Bailey, the chief of the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department, says the problem has gotten worse ever since the COVID pandemic. Large groups of people, whom he says are well organized, get together and shut down city streets in order to race or hold spinning competitions.

Spinning is essentially the act of doing donuts with a car.

Bailey said the city has passed ordinances against spinning and have also allowed police officers more leeway in enforcing such ordinances. But, Bailey said so far it hasn’t been enough to curb the problem at it’s core.

“They are just not getting it,” Bailey told the State Senate Committee on Corrections and Criminal Law. “They taunt us, law enforcement, prosecutors, judges, online. I have videos I can show you.”

Bailey testified on Tuesday to the committee as they consider a bill to essentially bolster laws against street racing and spinning on the state level. Bailey said state legislation is needed because the problem extends beyond the borders of Marion County.

“It’s an organized effort. Not everyone that’s involved in this activity is from Indiana. They come from all over,” he said. “Sometimes the individuals stage in other counties and then drive to Indianapolis.”

He said they have had instances where these groups stage in Hendricks or Hamilton County before heading to Indianapolis. Bailey said they have also employed several tactics to avoid getting caught by the cops. Even “James Bond type stuff,” as Bailey put it, like license plates flipping around to fool license plate readers.

The bill Bailey is supporting would give police even more leeway to enforce anti-street racing laws. It would allow police to confiscate a person’s car if they are deemed to be committing “reckless driving involving a rotational skid or obstruction of traffic involving a rotational skid.”

The bill advanced out of the committee by a vote of 6-to-1. The only dissenting vote was State Sen. Liz Brown (R-Fort Wayne). She told the committee that she felt the bill was too broad and could be used to take the car of someone simply acting alone and not apart of a large scale street take over.

“This is much bigger. This may be just an individual being an idiot, or accidentally being an idiot, not the massive gang-type activity that you (Bailey) are talking about,” she said. “This is so much more than that.”

The bill will now be considered by the full State Senate.