AURORA, Colo. (KDVR) — Interstate 225 became a giant parking lot in Aurora Sunday night.
Police say somewhere between 600 and 800 drivers were either caught in or a part of a giant street racing event Sunday night caused massive gridlock that stretched for miles.
Several Denver metro business owners say the problem isn’t just isolated to the highways, it’s spilling onto private properties.
Stephen Shepard is the executive vice president of the Denver Metro Building Owners and Managers Association. He says Sunday’s shenanigans should be the last straw.
“I think 600 cars hopefully woke up some people,” he said.
Shepard says he represents several business owners who have seen significant property damage from the street racers. Many are gathering in the parking lots of businesses before hitting the highway.
“We’re getting reports every weekend of donuts and peel outs in parking lots. They’re going out and scouting where there’s security and security cameras,” Shepard said.
Shepard says one of his members in the tech center was forced to spend $300,000 recently on repairs to his newly paved parking lot.
“Her voice level got to where she was basically yelling into the phone telling me what happened because they’re at their wits end because there is nothing they can do,” he said.
That’s why he and others are now pleading for help from police and city leaders.
“Until the people who are doing this realize there are extreme consequences, they’re not going to stop,” Shepard said.
Aurora Mayor Mike Coffman is accusing police in his city of not doing enough to combat the problem. In a tweet Coffman said, “It takes a lot of social media chatter to pull off an event like this, so I absolutely don’t understand how our police department didn’t know that this was going to happen. What I need to know now is what they are going to do to make sure that it doesn’t happen again. I expect more from our department.”
A police department spokesperson responded with a statement provided to FOX31. Matthew Wells-Longshore said, “The mayor is certainly entitled to his own opinion. This is an issue that is larger than just Aurora and through the metro-wide street racing work group we are hopeful that we can address some of these ongoing issues.”