Massachusetts awards $14M in public safety grants to combat illegal ‘street takeovers’

Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey says that coordinated law enforcement efforts have cracked down on illegal “street takeovers” like the one in South Boston last week that ended with a police car set on fire.

She also announced the state was distributing $14 million in public safety grants to 210 local police departments and 10 state agencies “to support traffic enforcement and stop illegal activity.”

“This causes public disorder, it’s damage to property, and it poses a really significant threat to public safety, and certainly harms quality of life in our neighborhoods and communities,” Healey said at a State House Press conference Thursday while flanked by the leaders of the Massachusetts State Police and the Brockton and Fall River Police departments.

“I said last week we have zero tolerance for this kind of behavior and that we were going to get after it and be on it,” she continued.

Healey said that an organized effort between the MSP and local police departments on Saturday resulted in 232 civil citations, 74 warnings, 20 criminal summons, seven arrests, 15 vehicles towed, two vehicles seized and the recovery of one stolen car.

“Most importantly, we saw none of the disruptions in our communities like we’ve seen in the past few weeks. And it’s thanks to the great police work across this state,” she said. “That’s not to suggest that our work is done.”

MSP Col. Geoffrey Noble said that there were about 50 troopers there who had volunteered for the detail, which he described as “tough work … dangerous work, and they did it to an exceptional level.”

Another effort on Oct. 2 in Brockton — where the illegal gathers have “taken over the streets,” according to Brockton Police Chief Brenda Perez — resulted in more than 200 car stops, 33 tows, and an arrest for cocaine and fentanyl trafficking.

Healey described the so-called “street takeovers” as a harmful national trend in which organizers recruit others on social media to block intersections to stage “car racing, all sorts of dangerous maneuvers.”

Occurrences in eastern and southeastern Massachusetts came to a head early in the morning of Sunday, Oct. 5, when police say more than 100 people attended an illegal gathering around the intersection of Massachusetts Avenue and Tremont Street in South Boston, shutting down the normal traffic flow.

Boston Police Commissioner Michael Cox said then that police were met “by a pretty large group of people and some of the individuals in the group started to throw cones, poles, and other objects at the officers.” That escalated to some climbing onto a BPD cruiser and then setting it on fire, totaling it. Two men from Rhode Island were arrested.

“None of this would be possible without our team, our collective team, of troopers and officers who are out there day and night risking their lives to do this work,” Noble said. “The results speak for themselves.”