Dangerous Game: Illegal Street Racing: Target 12 goes undercover in Providence

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Source: WPRI
Date: May 13, 2010
Author: Tim White

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PROVIDENCE, R.I. (WPRI) - The Target 12 Investigators went undercover to expose Rhode Island's underground world of Undercover Street Racing illegal street racing.

After receiving a tip to a highly organized and regular gathering of street racers on Ernest Street in Providence, Target 12 captured undercover video of a match in the early morning hours of Sunday April 10th, 2010.

The video shows dozens of cars streaming down Ernest Street and lining up. The street is a straight, quarter-mile stretch in a gritty section of Providence off Allen's Avenue.

Within minutes, two cars line up at the beginning of the road. A man that racing experts identified as a "flagger," lines the cars up and sends them off, screeching tires and speeding down the road. The video shows that as one car is in the lead, the driver hits turns on their hazard lights. Experts say that is to announce victory.

In one section of the video, a car attempts to make its way down Ernest Street as two cars get ready to drag race. Seemingly thumbing his nose at safety, the flagger sends the cars speeding off anyway, past the oncoming vehicle, at a high rate of speed.

In approximately 15 minutes, Target 12 captured four races down Ernest Street. The group then quickly dispersed. Street racing expert Bryan Harrison, founder and President of EVO Street Racing, said the race is called a "dig."

His website (www.evostreetracers.com) defines a dig as "an illegal street race where two or more vehicles align their front bumper and race to a predetermined point. The driver that reaches the predetermined point first wins (Distances can range - usually a quarter mile)."

Though Rhode Island does have legislation that makes racing on public streets illegal, Harrison, who has worked with law enforcement across the country, said it is often difficult to bust racers.

"Unless an officer has a specific knowledge that it may be related to illegal street racing, it is very, very hard to track," he said.

Mike Healey, a spokesperson for the Rhode Island Attorney General Patrick Lynch agreed. Often Officers charge suspected street racers with "Driving to Endanger" because they simply don't catch them in the act, he said.

Unlike some other states, Rhode Island does not give police the option to ticket drivers if they have modified their cars for speed, according to the Attorney General's Office.

Target 12 took the undercover video to Providence Police Sergeant Paul Zienowicz who runs the department's Traffic Division.

"I would say that they are very organized," Zienowicz said. "I know in the past that they have had spotters looking out for us. It was counterintelligence, so to speak."

Street Racing experts tell Eyewitness News many of the cars aren't just modified for speed, but they often come with police scanners to monitor radio traffic.

Zienowicz said he suspects these racers decided to pull off a match at 2 a.m., because they know the police are busy elsewhere at that time.

"Our resources are strained to the limit with nightclubs breaking up in the downtown area, and around the city," he said.

In a tragic bit of irony, three people lost their lives on Ernest Street in a high speed crash in 2006. Zienowicz said the police suspected illegal street racing at the time. The driver Jose Baret, is in prison until 2011, convicted of Driving to Endanger, death resulting.

Three passengers in his car died that night: Marco Couto, 27; Carlos Polanco, 27; and Christopher Verissimo, 23.

Family members of Christopher Verissimo said they were horrified after they viewed the undercover video of the illegal street race. Verissimo's mother-in-law, Venilde Sebastiao said it's particularly troubling since the racers were speeding past an illuminated memorial, honoring the dead.

"The proof is right there, their names are in the building, that's not something they can ignore," Sebastiao said. "If they think it can't happen to them, they are very wrong. Just look at those names, it was three lives taken."

Verissimo was a passenger in the back seat of the Mercedes that slammed into a building on Ernest Street. Zienowicz said they estimated the car was driving at more than 70 miles an hour. The car, he said, was modified for speed.

Verissimo's wife, Jocelyn, was four months pregnant when her husband was killed. His son was just a year old. Jocelyn said her daughter asks about her father all the time.

"I tell her that he's with God and he's helping him," Jocelyn Verissimo said. "And one day she will see him."

She said her husband was not into street racing and doesn't think Baret was in a race when the crash happened.

Target 12 interviewed an Emergency Medical Technician from the night of the crash. He asked not to be identified. He said dozens of "modified" cars were there when rescue personnel arrived. It was clear, he said, there was a race that night, whether or not the Mercedes was involved in a race when the crash happened.

After watching the video, however, both Sebastiao and Verissimo said they are going to urge city officials to install speed mitigation devices, such as speed bumps in the area.

But Harrison, from EVO Street Racing, said that will unfortunately do little to curb the problem.

"Speed bumps are not going to solve it at all, [the racers] are going to move to another nearby location," he said. "Unless you intend on putting speed bumps across the globe it's not going to stop it."

Harrison's group has worked to educate law enforcement about street racing, lobby for stricter laws and coordinate sanctioned street racing events to give speedsters a safe outlet.

According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), 1,047 people have died in illegal street racing crashes between 2001 and 2008. Ten have died in Rhode Island during the same stretch.

But Harrison said those numbers are "grossly inaccurate." His website points out many police departments simply don't have a way to track street racing because there's no option for it on citations. Plus there's little or no consistency in defining street racing between agencies, undermining a national epidemic, according to Harrison.

In fact, the 2006 triple fatal crash on Ernest Street is not reflected in the numbers provided to Target 12 by the NHTSA.

"We correspond illegal street racing on the same level of drunk driving on the basis of how detrimental it is to society and how courts should start treating it," Harrison said.

"Unfortunately drunk driving is as simple as taking a breathalyzer test, illegal street racing is something that isn't quantitative and it’s up to an officer's discretion."

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