WTF! Dallas parking lot ERUPTS With Gunfire As Street Racers Do Doughnuts

A crowd of rowdy street racers in Pleasant Grove got a visit from the police Sunday night. Just before 11 p.m., while investigating reports of racing and gunfire in the 2200 block of South Buckner Boulevard, police spotted someone firing a gun out of a white Ford Crown Victoria. Eric Richardson, 29, was arrested after a traffic stop on outstanding warrants and a charge of discharging a firearm in a municipality. Police said they will work with the manager of the property to install stop signs and speed bumps to curb the racing. But some Pleasant Grove residents say the problems extend beyond that stretch of Buckner and have no easy fix. Street racers often hop from one area to another, making it hard for cops to quash them completely.



In June, police arrested five street racing suspects in their late teens and early 20s on Eastpoint Drive. Investigators believe the men used to race on Forney Road but moved a few blocks north after arrests were made in the area. Southern Dallas is also dealing with a 17 percent uptick in aggravated assaults this year compared with last year, police said. Drive-by shootings are counted as aggravated assaults. Bonnie Mathias said her neighborhood, about three miles from where Richardson was arrested, sounds like a drag strip some nights. There's no use calling 911, she said, because it's hard to discern where the gunfire is coming from. Mathias, who chairs the Texas Organizing Project of Pleasant Grove, is also mindful of the fact that Dallas cops are strapped for resource these days.



So she brings her dogs inside and stays put. Celebratory gunfire and fireworks tormented Mathias and her neighbors for nearly a week around the Fourth of July, she said. "When those shots go up," she said, "you don't know where those bullets might come down. Might be someone smoking a cigarette on their front porch."