Vallejo residents shocked by huge weekend sideshows

In Vallejo, residents are saying the weekend's sideshows were the biggest - most out of hand - they've ever seen.

On Sunday night, hundreds of people showed up at the corner of Sonoma Blvd and Kentucky Street to watch cars with screeching tires, spinning donuts in the street.

Sam Coniglio lives in the neighborhood and wasn't able to get to his house because of all the cars blocking the streets.

"You cannot drive anywhere," he said. "It's loud, it's scary, people have guns. They ended the event by shooting the guns off. That's how they knew the show was over."

He said it lasted for about 90 minutes and not a single police officer ever showed up.

"Oh, yeah, yeah, we're fed up with the lack of...no one showing up to do something about it," said Coniglio.

But while they may be fed up, no one seems very surprised. The night before, on Saturday, another sideshow began at the corner of Georgia Street and Columbus Parkway. The street is now covered with black skid marks, and there are ribbons of rubber that sheared off the tires. At that one, estimates of the crowd size ranged from 500 to 1,000 people.

"It was the biggest one I've seen. So, it's getting bigger, they're getting more people to come, show up," said Kay Whitecotton.

He lives right near that intersection and said people were actually climbing onto the roof of the house across the street to watch it. He said it lasted at least 40 minutes and, again, no one from the city ever arrived.

"Nobody cared," said Whitecotton. "Police never showed up. I don't know why they don't show up. No idea. You would think that they could bring in four or five cars and block off that intersection and arrest a thousand people! And they don't."

But his neighbor, Enrique Siguy, saw the impracticality of that.

"My wife asked me to call the police but then I said, what's the point? ... I mean, they won't be able to do anything. There was too many people. Too many cars. What are they gonna do?"

That's a question everyone, including the police, are asking. The department is already struggling with a manpower shortage and the idea of a handful of officers stopping hundreds of people from doing anything seems pretty unlikely. Like a lot of departments, Vallejo P.D. has shrunk every year since 2020. Last summer the city voted to declare a state of emergency with only 43 sworn officers to patrol the entire city. They can sometimes get help from neighboring departments, like in August when they got the assistance of five other agencies to break up a sideshow, towing away a couple of cars. But usually, the gatherings pop up so quickly that there is little time to coordinate anything. But Whitecotton thought you don't have to arrest everyone.

"I think if they put eight or ten of them in jail for the night, they wouldn't go to another one," he said. "They would know that the police are going to come and arrest them. But they don't have to worry. Police are not going to show up."