NEW ORLEANS — Tire tracks are still burned into the pavement at the intersection of Chef Highway and Downman Road in the Pines Village neighborhood of New Orleans East. Sunday evening, the intersection was blocked and traffic backed up in four directions, as cars did stunts, one with someone hanging out the window.
“It was crazy,” said a man named “Gerrod” who filmed it happening and didn’t want to be identified. “It was one after another. It was like a performance.”
That intersection is near the base of the high-rise, where Gerrod was stuck in traffic for about half an hour.
“I’m thinking it was like a bad accident or something,” said Gerrod. “I see all this smoke and I’m like, ‘Something must be on fire,’” said Gerrod.
Frustrated, Gerrod eventually saw where the smoke was coming from and started filming.
“People are trying to get home and they’re like, “When is this going to end? It was like never-ending,” said Gerrod.
Cars doing donuts and burnouts on major roads have become common in New Orleans. A video claiming to also be from the weekend shows a car doing stunts near an NOPD cruiser with it's lights on. In a response to Eyewitness News, the NOPD says it is aware of the video and is investigating.
At least three others happened in February. One happened on Interstate 10 during rush hour traffic, another during a busy night on Frenchmen street, and another close to the Superdome in the CBD.
All of them were close to people and all of them, according to police, are dangerous.
“It’s not fair to the people that are trying to get home to their families that have worked a hard day at work and trying to get to the store to get groceries,” said Gerrod.
Gerrod says police patrol this area well and is surprised what he witnessed lasted so long. He’s even more surprised it looked like a tailgate.
“They’re back there in their trucks, they’ve got ice coolers back there, you’ve got kids out there, you’ve got the lawn chairs sitting in the back of the truck and I’m like, ‘Wow,’” said Gerrod.
Eyewitness News reached out to NOPD about this latest case and to also get an update on the one involving the police cruiser. We have not heard back.