Six people waiting in line for a popular California restaurant were injured after an SUV doing donuts in a nearby intersection plowed into them, police said.
Terrifying video from Sunday morning captured the moment a white Honda CR-V made a wide turn at a busy intersection in Santa Clarita, north of Los Angeles, and rammed into a crowd outside the Black and Blue Restaurant, KTLA reports.
Although many in the crowd managed to dodge the vehicle, six people were hit before the car slammed into a wall of the restaurant’s patio, causing minor damage.
The white SUV, dragging its front bumper, quickly backed up and fled the scene as the crowd and security personnel rushed to help the injured.
Officials said the six wounded suffered only minor injuries, with first responders able to treat them at the scene.
Upon arriving at the restaurant, cops discovered the car’s front license plate, which had fallen off when it crashed into the wall.
With that, officers were able to quickly identify the driver and arrested two women on Magic Mountain Parkway. The women have not been publicly identified.
Following a field sobriety test, both women were arrested on DUI charges and could face more counts as investigators continue their probe, police said.
Witnesses at the scene claimed that the suspect was clearly attempting a street takeover, where people try to shut down an intersection to perform various stunts in their vehicles.
“The driver decided to do some donuts in a white-looking SUV,” one witness told CBS news. “She did one turnover around where it pretty much wasn’t too successful.
“I guess she did another and that one actually made impact. It luckily did not hit too many people but a lot of people were getting knocked down,” the witness added.
Street takeovers, or “sideshows”, have become a problem in large cities across the nation in recent years, with wannabe stunt drivers performing dangerous tricks with their vehicles in the middle of the road.
While the popularity of such stunts soared during the pandemic when few drivers were out and about, the takeovers persist, particularly in Los Angeles, where officials have been tracking such incidents.
The Los Angeles Police Department reported there were 7,654 such takeovers in 2021, and about 4,899 in 2022. The statistics for 2023 have yet to be made available.