courtesy of Angel Durr Unfair Park from p3 interested in it at first. But then when they were shooting and stuff, [and] that’s when her opinion changed on it immediately.” Durr always felt the stunt drivers were dangerous. She lives in Addison near the city’s airport, where she says takeovers have been frequent since the pandemic started. To her, the groups behind the takeovers are like gangs. “This is not like just a fun thing,” Durr said. “These car clubs are actually gangs. They are mobilizing the same way that gangs do. I feel like there’s a lot more to the story than just a fun night out doing something because you want to show off your vehicle. “When people are dying, that’s not just a car club. I grew up around cars. My mom is a trained mechanic. But at the same time, we respect vehicles, and we don’t just go off and create unsafe situations for people.” Just a couple of months after Washington moved to Dallas, she was shot and killed. “If you stand in the spot where it happened, you can see her apartment,” Mckinzie said. Washington let a friend borrow her car that day. When her friend was returning the car later that night, they got stuck in traffic caused by a street takeover near Washing- ton’s home. “It’s literally like being stuck in traffic on 635,” Mckinzie said. “You can’t move. It’s just people angry, and they want to leave, but there’s people in front of you doing dumb stuff so you can’t.” Durr and Mckinzie say that Washington 4 4 started walking to where her friend was stuck because she thought it would be faster than waiting for the takeover to disperse. “Because of the woman she was, I’m pretty sure she was already mad that she had to get her car,” Mckinzie said. “I’m sure when she saw them she was frustrated and probably told them ‘Hey, get off the street! What are Lynetta Washington with her grandbaby. you all doing?’” The family believes this is what insti- gated the shooting. Her mom had just gotten off work 10 minutes earlier, Durr said. “She got into it with these people,” she said. “Other people saw her get into it with them.” When Washington walked off, Durr said three cars followed her. She said someone in one of those three cars shot her mom. “We have a video of it happening, with the cars and everything, and just execution style, left her there,” Durr said. It took an ambulance about an hour to get there. Her brother and sister, Michael and Myah, got to the scene around the same time the cops did. They called Durr and Mck- inzie. “Mom got shot,” they said. Mckinzie and her husband called Wash- ington’s phone and two random people an- swered. “What’s going on? What’s happening?” Mckinzie said. Not wanting to be the bearer of bad news, they simply told her to come. Mckinzie said: “That’s how me and her son knew, and we just lost it. It was awful. It was really awful.” Instead of an open casket funeral, Wash- ington had to be cremated; she was shot in the face. She had recently completed a fed- eral prison sentence for financial crimes, such as identity theft and wire fraud, and was getting her life back on track working at the telemedicine company Teladoc. In response to the shooting the next day, City Council member Casey Thomas said: “This is something that should’ve never happened. We’re being as proactive and ag- gressive as we can be in order to make sure that something is done.” But Durr said DPD hasn’t been commu- nicating with them about the case, and they courtesy of Angel Durr didn’t do enough to protect the crime scene. “They haven’t communicated with us at all and that’s the frustrating part,” Durr said. She’s also a data strategy consultant and says she’s worked with the city on many occa- sions. “So it’s even more frustrating that they know me and they’re not communicating with me,” she said. That’s why Washington’s family has started looking into the case themselves. At first, they would just go out and patrol the area, taking pictures and videos of the stunt drivers and talking to people in the neigh- borhood. She said this has gotten them pretty far. Through this, Durr said they’ve also spoken to some of the swingers. “The people that are actually serious about the car part of it, they have events. I’ve talked to those people,” Durr said. “They’ve been very nice to us. They’ve been very re- spectful to us. The people that are truly do- ing the car shows and all that stuff, they’re not involved with this. This is something else.” Some of the people Durr has spoken to belong to the group TSNLS Dallas. Street racing and stunt driving blew up in DFW and across the country during the pandemic. Many of Dallas’ street takeovers in the earlier days of the pandemic were or- ganized by TSNLSDallas, as they’re called on Instagram. “[It] started in March of 2020,” the Instagram user told the Observer Lynetta Washington with her daughter Angel Durr in February. “We became the face of Dallas sideshows.” They became experts at evading the po- lice. It seemed at times that they had free rein over the city’s streets. “We know how to move. We are always a step ahead,” TSNLS- Dallas said. But four months after Washington’s death, the police started catching up with some of the swingers. One weekend in August, DPD arrested dozens of people during 11 street takeover events. They also handed out 16 citations to spectators. In September, House Bill 2315 took ef- fect, which allows law enforcement in some circumstances to seize and possibly forfeit someone’s car as part of an ongoing effort to clamp down on street racing. First-time offenders still won’t get their car seized or forfeited unless they’ve injured someone or were driving while intoxicated. For any offense after that, stunt drivers risk having to get a new car. State Reps. John Turner and Morgan Meyer filed the biparti- san bill based on DPD’s recommendations and constituent comments. The takeovers continue in some parts of town though. Mckinzie said she still hears the street takeovers in Dallas at >> p6 MONTH XX–MONTH XX, 2014 JANUARY 20–26, 2022 DALLAS OBSERVER DALLAS OBSERVER | CLASSIFIED | MUSIC | DISH | MOVIES | CULTURE | NIGHT+DAY | FEATURE | SCHUTZE | UNFAIR PARK | CONTENTS | CLASSIFIED | MUSIC | DISH | CULTURE | UNFAIR PARK | CONTENTS dallasobserver.comdallasobserver.com
