Viral footage of a street takeover in Orange County helped authorities identify the driver of a hit-and-run that sent two people to the hospital, Anaheim police said.
A livestreamer captured the entire incident on Kick.com on Friday around 2 a.m. as a black Dodge Charger spun doughnuts around a crowd of spectators, drifting dangerously close as a passenger in a white hoodie leaned halfway out of the car posing for pictures.
“This s— is fire bro,” the streamer says in the background. But excitement quickly turns to horror as the driver suddenly turns into the crowd, running over people. The crowd swarms the car, people begin jumping on the front windshield, the video shows. “There’s still a guy under it,” the streamer shouts.
Minutes later, sirens can be heard as police arrive on scene at the intersection of State College Boulevard and Orangewood Avenue. Police said that the driver fled the scene before they arrived, but using social media footage and other tips, they identified the suspected driver as Hassan Hamid Ali.
The 20-year-old Torrance man was arrested Sunday night and was booked on suspicion of felony hit and run and misdemeanor exhibition of speed.
From a different angle of the night, a video shows two injured people lying prone on the ground, one bloodied around the head. Sgt. Matt Sutter, a public information officer with the Anaheim Police Department, said the victims were both 19 years old, one from the city of Orange and other from Lancaster.
The two suffered cuts, scrapes and broken bones, but are conscious and are still at the hospital in stable condition, Sutter added.
Street takeovers have become popular in Southern California since at least the COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns and have drawn the ire of public officials and community members as they’ve continually proved deadly.
Sutter said law enforcement used to be able to better track down these gatherings off of public social media posts, but tactics have changed, making it difficult to anticipate where the next takeover might happen.
In late September, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed four bills into to law aimed at deterring stunt driving and racing on the streets of California.