How Street Racing Got Out of Control in Los Angeles | Lili Trujillo Puckett

Some of them call it the movement and it just got out of control all of a sudden. Do most people understand that what they're doing can cause somebody to die? It's illegal and reckless and someone can die but they still do it. It's the fun of it, it's the thrill, you know, it's a showing off my car. And there was recently a street takeover that actually ended up with people going to a 7-Eleven stealing. Before it was kind of like more underground, now it's visible. That's what they say, there's nothing good coming out of it. During a street takeover in Los Angeles County on Christmas night, a 24-year-old lost her life when she was struck by a reckless driver performing donuts in an intersection in Los Angeles. Unfortunately, a lot of people had to die for this to finally legislate us because they're helping us and doing something about it. My guest today is Lili Trujillo-Puckett, founder of Street Racing Kills. Look how many young people are dying every year, die in the streets. Is this reckless and illegal driving being properly addressed in California? What necessary steps should be taken to keep others from being victimized? Stay tuned for an insider's perspective. I'm Siamak Khorrami, welcome to California Insider. Thank you so much for having me. We want to talk to you about new laws that are coming for street racing. Just over Christmas, a 24-year-old girl got killed by people making donuts in the middle of the street. What is the purpose of making donuts? This is what came to me, it's like why people are doing this now? From what I've heard so far and the people that I have talked to, basically the car culture going bad. The bad side, there is a good side of the car culture and there's a bad side of the car culture. Started over the pandemic, it was happening before but the pandemic really spiked it out and it's just having fun for them, showing off their cars, showing off their skills, right? And then the people that come and watch is to get a good video to put on Instagram and get some likes. Some people just think it's just part of the car culture, having fun and showing off your cars and going to see a good stunt. A lot of them know the dangers, a lot of them don't know the dangers and a lot of them don't care as long as they show off how good they can do a donut. So the idea is to just go around the circle and go fast and... The skill of doing the donut without hitting anyone or how good you are at doing this and give a show to the spectators. Who are the people that go there to these events? Everything, everything. People that like to see that, people that want to get a good video, people that just get invited. Hey, let's go over there, let's go see them, let's go check them out. And some people, a friend of a friend, hey, we're going to be here hanging out, let's go over here. And one of the things that I tell everyone that it's not your party. Usually when you go to a party, you know who's going to be there or at least you're going to meet some new people. This is a party for a lot of people from everywhere. I mean, they don't come just from that area. They'll come from everywhere to see this show. And we are hearing from the Los Angeles County that the number of these complaints about these kinds of races and this donut making, or if they are, it's 60% higher in the last two years. Yes. So this is growing, right? After the pandemic, for whatever reason, this... Yeah. One of the things that I've heard, because I am no expert at it, but it's just what I've seen and mentoring and talking to these people. We have a diversion program, which the court sends them to us after they get in trouble by doing a donut, by street racing, by spectating or speeding. When I talk to them, a lot of people have told me, you know, it's the fun of it. You know, it's the thrill. You know, it's a showing off my car. You know, and what I can do. And a lot of people through the pandemic got a lot of money from Uncle Sam. So they had the money to soup up their cars. I mean, first of all, they were bored. Nothing to do. Have a cool car. I have this money that I can make it even cooler. I have the money to put everything into it. I believe, for what I've heard and for what they've told me, is that that helped a lot for them to start, as they call it, some of them call it the movement, you know, to start doing this. But do they know that they could have consequences when somebody gets killed like that? Somebody's family, the disaster that comes. Do most people understand that what they're doing can cause somebody to die? One of their friends? Well, you got to get in their mind of these people. You know, they're very young. Most of them are in the from 17 to 24, 25 years old. Most of them 20, 22. You just don't think it's going to happen to you. That's one of the things I've heard the most, like I'm not going to be the one. It's not going to happen to me. You know what I mean? Some people, when something happens, say I'm done. Some people still do it because they just don't think it's going to happen to them until it happens to them. And there's two groups, right? There's the people that are doing it and then there are the people that go there to watch. Yes. And they just get invited because they think it's a party, right? Party's on wheels. You know, I just think it's a party or just go because of a friend or whatever, you know, just different reasons. They get invited, you know. Some know it's going to happen. Some just live close by and they want to watch, you know. Some want to take that video. You know, it's fun for them. You know, a lot of them know from the beginning that it's illegal and reckless and someone can die, but they still do it because they love that excitement of doing that donut or go to watch because it's so cool, you know. So what is the consequence of getting caught? If somebody catches you, if the police catches you, what can happen to you? I think they give you a ticket. What happens? If you're the one doing the donut, they will arrest you. You can spend a night in jail depending what street race task force. There is different task forces, the LAPD and the California Highway Patrol. They're out there, you know, checking and trying to catch them. And they will, most of the time, they will impound your car for up to 30 days and you have to go to court. And that's about it so far. There is many bills coming through. They have a big one that just came through. But so far right now, the only thing that the police can do is do what the law is allowing them to do. Maybe give you a ticket, impound your car, maybe go to jail for one day then you have to go to court and take a diversion program. Before we continue, we would like to thank Shen Yun for sponsoring this channel. I lived in China for two years and experienced two different Chinas. One is the China we know now, unfortunately with communism. And the other is ancient Chinese culture with 5,000 years of history, strong values, ethics and morality that has been lost. Shen Yun Performing Arts is reviving this 5,000 years of Chinese traditional culture. It takes you back in time to magical world of ancient China with a unique blend of brilliant dancing, beautiful costumes and legends coming to life. Go to Shenyun.com to find out the schedule and theater information. It's a lifetime experience you don't want to miss. Book your tickets today. Now let's go back to the interview. It's interesting that they can't stop these guys because probably if the police wanted to catch them, it should be easy to catch these people, right? They get together every weekend probably or every certain nights. There's a community of them. What are your thoughts? How come they are not able to? No, they are catching them. It's just another of them. If you think about a huge fire in the forest, right? And it's got so out of control. And you're like, why aren't the firemen turning off this fire right away? It's going to take time because it started growing a long time ago. And it just got out of control all of a sudden. And even though the police has been trying to do something about it for so long, we needed bills to support us. They needed something to tell them, okay, this is how much we can do. The only thing they could do in the past is just like you said, just gave them a ticket and impound their car, right? We needed more bills. But unfortunately, a lot of people had to die for this to finally legislate us because they're helping us and doing something about it. You know, and that's what they are doing. It's just you have to chase them. They're not just in one point, they're everywhere, all over the city. They're scattered everywhere. So you have a street racing task force here, here, here. And they're trying over here, you know, to control this one. There's another one over here. So they're everywhere. So you wouldn't believe the amount of people that they arrest every time. But then by getting these ones, they still have to get these ones. And one thing that they do is they have several locations where they're going to be at. So once they're finished here and the police is here, the other ones that get away are going to another location. So they're just everywhere. There was a press conference where the 24-year-old passed away. There was a press conference. And as the L.A. Deputy Sheriff is talking about this incident, there are cars coming by and passing with a loud exhaust. Yes. I think they're trying to send a message that it doesn't matter what you're saying. See, like this is an example of one of them. It's funny to them, but it's really a sick, sick culture. Yeah, they're into their car. They're into their mentality and showing off their car and doing what they're doing. And you're always going to see the rebels, you know, they don't care. You mentioned that this culture of car culture has gone dark with these donuts. And there was recently a street takeover that actually ended up with people going to a 7-Eleven and stealing. What are your thoughts on this? Like I said, I think it's just people that, there's all kind of people that go there. You know, there's the good, there's the bad, there's the one that, OK, let's do this crazy stuff and let's go do this right now. It's not just because of a takeover, it's just the people that happened to be there that decided just to do that randomly. It's not like, not every, it doesn't happen at every takeover. You know what I mean? It's the things that are happening, the fights that, you know, you see people getting beat up, you know, and then you see everything, people shooting a gun up in the air, but because there's people from everything there, from every culture, from every economical background, there's, you know, there's everything there. And then a particular group might decide to do something crazy like what happened that day. You know, it was, I'm pretty sure it was not planned, I have no idea. But what I can tell you is because there's so much of everything, things like this can happen. So that's what they say, there's nothing good coming out of it. Some of them say that they have nothing else to do. This is all they have. You know, what are your thoughts on this? There's nothing else for them to get a joy out of besides this. I think it's immaturity. They're just young and immature. And that's what they're holding on to. This is what I have right now. This is what I'm going to do. This is my passion right now. My car, to do this, you know what I mean? I do believe that these young people just have to be mentored, you know, and talked to. And hopefully they can get through this, through this stage that are going through right now in their life. And go through it with nothing happened to them and just move away from it. I don't believe in my heart that everybody's bad. I don't think that they go out every morning, and when they're planning this, oh, today I'm going to kill someone. You know, or I'm going to kill myself. And I'm going to, you know, go ahead and take away a child from the parent. You know, that's not what they're thinking inside. You know, they're thinking just the wrong way. And I really believe that they have to be mentored. Do I think there have to be consequences? I definitely do. Sometimes that's how we learn. There's a reason these kids are out there doing this. Do they get the inspiration from somewhere? Are we allowing it? I think they go to the car commercials. What do they talk about? They don't talk about how safe the car is. They talk about how fast the car is. If you even see Dutch commercials of the cars, even like getting side by side and going super fast. You know, a young person can go buy a car that can go so fast. Look at this Tesla, all these cars, they can go so fast. And then there's nobody telling you that it's not safe. It's telling you that it's cool. So I think the media, the car commercials, they promote speed, movies, everything, all of that. There should be something at the end, something saying that, you know, just like before they were trying to fly like Superman because you can't fly, right? It's kind of like the same. And I think there is a lot of also the promoting of these cars and making these cars so fast and giving this. It's like you're giving that loaded gut to a young person, you know, you're just giving them, now go ahead and go crazy with it. There's no more driver's education at schools in California. So basically you just take your test and that's it with a little bit of something here and there. Who's teaching these kids about the dangers of illegal street racing and reckless driving and driving under the influence, all of these things that are so important that they have this at the schools that the DMV demands of it. We don't have it. Look how many young people are dying. The age of them are always 16, 17, 18, 19, 20. Young people. Overhead 24-year-old Eliza Oaxaca. But they are the teenagers are the most people that every year die in our streets because of this lack of education. So Lily, you have been very active on this. You have your own personal story about this. Can you tell us more about what happened to you? Oh, why am I here today? Well, I was back in December 7, 2013. And at the time, I was just a single mom. You know, I focused on working. I focused on making sure my kids had something to eat. We had a roof over our head and they would go to school. That was my thing. My daughter was only 16 years old, went to Torrance High. She wanted to go to Spadina, her best friend's house. And I was like, why not? They usually come here and I go there. And I dropped her off. They were going to go to a party before. They went to this party. And the boy that took these three girls to a party on the way back, taking them home, he was a weak child of 18. He saw a co-worker driving by and they started playing. You know, he had a Mustang. I don't know what the other guy had. They stopped next to each other. And when he pulled the window down, my daughter's girlfriend woke up because they were tired from the party and they were sleeping. My daughter was in the backseat. And she heard when he said, let's do this. And he took off going over 80 miles an hour. That's when she realized and she put her seatbelt on. I was telling my daughter to put her seatbelt on. My daughter didn't know what she was talking about. So he tried to beat the yellow light. And unfortunately, he just took it and crashed against an SUV, against a fence. And when my daughter's best friend woke up, my daughter was hanging from the window. So she passed away from head injuries. And I thought about it and I thought about it and I said, well, why did I do wrong? As a mom, I was too lenient. Should I have let her go? And I said, no. I said, if she, if he didn't engage into a street race, he would have taken her home. It was a street race that killed her. That decision that he made in that moment with the other guy, you know. And that's when I said, well, a street race killed my daughter. And within months, I was asked to go speak at a school. And I had never spoken at a school, actually. I didn't even like to go to those parent conferences. And here I am now. I have to live at the schools. But they asked me to go speak. And there was a guy that spoke about drugs. The lady that spoke about alcohol. And then it was me. What was I going to speak about, right? And I spoke about it. It was street racing, you know, and what speed can do. And my life just kept rolling and rolling and going and finding ways that I could mentor. Because I know that that 18-year-old didn't need to kill my daughter. She was a friend. And I knew that if I would mentor them about such a topic that was not spoken about anywhere, you know, I could save some lives. She could save some lives. And her death wouldn't be in vain. I could keep her with me. And we've been working really hard and doing everything that we can. Going to legislators, going to the police, being mentored by the police. So did people take it seriously when you started talking about this? Because it wasn't that big of a problem as it is today, right? It was hard convincing legislators that there was a problem. The school, it was hard getting into the schools. Yes, it was really hard. But we did it. We, I never stopped. I never stopped getting into schools and finding ways to get a school, creating programs to get into schools. Yes, it was hard to convince people there was a problem. They didn't think it's a serious problem. Correct. Back in 2014, 2015, 2016, nobody thought it was such a big problem. People that knew about it did, like the street racing task forces. In Los Angeles, the police knew there was a problem. That's why street racing task forces started forming everywhere. Yeah, so it was hard convincing the schools, the people, and, yeah, and legislators to know that this is a problem that is, I tried telling them, there's a problem that's growing. It's getting worse. We need more education. We need laws supporting the police so they can do something. They can only do so much at the time. And did the legislature change? There is new laws that you have helped, actually worked on to get them passed, right? Yeah, one of the bills I'm most proud of is, you know, 1472 by Senator Stern, you know, but it was done actually because of a boy that passed away, 16-year-old boy in the valley from a speeding driver. And that's when he said, okay, this happened here. And then he saw the problem and that's when he decided to do something about it. What can we do? His decision was to do something like the Watson Statement, which is for driving under the influence. And it was the same thing. This is like if you are, you know, charged, let's say, with a misdemeanor, you're street racing, you're doing a donut, you're spectating, and you're even warned and you do it again, but you kill someone, then, you know, that's giving the judge and the prosecutors to go, you know, and go after you for murder. Are there any other laws that you're working on? Well, there's actually two bills that are already passed. These were in 2021, 22, and 22 was AB3 by Assembly Member Vince Fong. And AB3, what it does is it will take your license away. If you're caught street racing, we're going to take over spectating. However, we're waiting on the DMV. The DMV said we're going to have to wait until 2025 for this, even though this bill has been approved. That's how much time there's going to be a wait. I think that that bill, if it had been effective right away, would really, really curb the problem. Think about it, taking your license away for six months. Then you can't do anything. You can't do anything. Yeah, I mean, that's a great bill. And unfortunately, we've got to wait to 2025. I mean, come on. You know, I think that's a good one, which is not really, I feel like it's a good bill. It's not that strict or that aggressive. It's just something telling, you know what? OK, we're taking your license away. You learned a lesson. I think it's a great bill. And unfortunately, we have to wait. AB2000 as well. AB2000 makes it legal to do in a parking lot on a private area as well. And taking your license away as well. These two bills until 2025. Now, has the attitude changed from the state legislatures now that we have this? I mean, before we had street racing and it was not as common as it is now. It seems like every day there's doughnuts. Somebody is making doughnuts somewhere. And has the attitude changed in the legislature or is it? Totally. Everybody wants, yeah, to do something about it now. Yeah, and it started, I think it's been about the last three years that they were like, OK, my God, this is a problem. We're going to do something about it, which I am very, very happy that they are. They're trying to do something because they're seeing it. Now it's very visible. Before, it was kind of like more underground. Now it's visible. So it's like, let's do something about it, which I feel like it wasn't so much. It's not that they didn't care. It just wasn't. How could you convince them? It wasn't visible. So it was more. Yes. In California, we have, sometimes we have strict laws when it comes to littering in the highway. Like you can get fined sometimes a thousand dollars. Nobody dares to put trash out because you don't want to pay a thousand dollar fine. How can we not have a more serious punishment for something like this, where you can kill people? And I am so happy that you bring that up because I've been fighting for this for a long time. I even reached out to the Department of Transportation and told them, you have humongous electronic boards that say, you know, clicker or ticket, the drought, littering. How come we cannot push to raising kills, right? With other entities that we've been trying to talk to. However, I have to tell you that the Automobile Club of, you know, of Southern California, which is AAA, has been campaigning about this for a long time. Campaigning against illegal street racing and against the reckless driving. However, like I said, we need more. We may need to make this a humongous campaign to do something. I've been campaigning for a long time, but we need to make this more. I think with the new bills it's going to help us, but definitely let's do more about it. Let's put more signage out there so people can see it. What do you recommend to California parents that are seeing this happening in LA? What do you recommend them? Talk to your kids. You know, if they're on their age, throw up, you know, a governor, throw a governor in that car. I know that you think your kids are not going to do anything bad. If you see they're getting into that thing, if they're still 16 until they get to 18, put a governor in that car. A governor will not let you go more than 70, 60 miles an hour. They don't have to know. You know, I always tell parents because they're like, oh, should I do it? I should not. Just go ahead and do it. Why not? When they're 18, they can do whatever they want anyway. Mentor them. Let them have these programs. Make them, let them watch what's going on, you know, and don't go against them. Don't tell them, OK, you can now have a cool car. No, there is ways, you know, there's tracks that you can go. Not many, but there's tracks that you can go to, and there's places where you can go this legally and be part of the car culture in the right way. Because there's a lot of people that have car meets. You can go to a car meet. Just keep it safe. You can belong to a car club. The right car club, don't go into the other side where you can get hurt. The right car club, the car culture is beautiful. You can still show off your cool car. You can still go as fast as you want on a track where someone's good, when you're going to be safe, and you can learn, you know, and have that responsibility. But have your parents mentor you as well and help you, not go against you. I think that one of the things that, you know, when we're young, it's like if you take this away, we want that even more, right? So if you see that, maybe you take him to the strip to do this race, and they're like, oh my God, I don't like it. And they'll probably be over it. You know, they might like it, but you take, I think, mentoring, talking to them, and if they're not even in it, you never know what they can challenge to do something like this. I would definitely throw a governor in their car, you know, so they won't go that fast, just in case. So tell us about your program. You have made some programs that are actually helping the people to understand what the consequences are, right? Yeah, so it's called the Reckless Driving Intervention Program, and I created it throughout the pandemic. And I wanted it to be some kind of diversion for this. I knew there was diversion for a lot of things, for driving under the influence where the judge goes, you were driving under the influence here, go to this program here, go to this program over here. Road rage, go here, go there. But there was nothing really for street racing and the reckless driving and the donuts. So we created the program in which the courts could refer to us, and it took us a while, and we're getting great referrals. So we're hoping some more district attorneys and the courts in California can refer to us, because what we do is we mentor them. We always have a police officer that will talk to them as well, not to give them a ticket, but to talk to them and mentor them and they can ask any questions. We have victim speakers that will talk to them how they lost their loved ones. I talk about how I lost my daughter. We also have professionals that will come from the car culture, but from the positive side of the car culture, they will talk to them about this is what you can do, this is where you can go. We had Irwindale Speedway, and to come and talk to them and tell them the dangers of what you can come and do. So we're giving them free tickets. I mean, what else do you want? But we have a survey at the end, and sometimes it just warms my heart when I see a good comment and where we ask many questions. And one of them is like, do you think you're driving behavioral change after this? Or what did you think of the program? And so many say, well, this story touched me. I don't want to do this anymore. I'm done. You know, thank you for what you're doing. Just this influences me. I ask a lot about, does Fast and Furious movies influence your driving behavior? I always get maybe, no, maybe yes. So you get a little bit of everything. And then so we can get some statistics, you know, on the age and everything. But when we get a good comment, why? Because we're mentoring them. We're talking to them. We're not judging them. Of course, the people that we're going to just get in trouble, they didn't kill anyone. But we're just mentoring them and hoping that by listening to our stories, that they, you know, we can touch their heart. So we're not trying to judge you. We're trying to touch the little piece of your heart because you're young. And if we can get through your heart, maybe we can get up here and we could think about more about the consequences and do it for all those people that have died. You know, I always tell them, live for a vow. Live where my daughter couldn't live. You know, just get through this stage that you're going in your life. And move on and make your life beautiful. Make all your dreams come true. And I just dream them. Go home. There's always someone waiting for you at home. You know, you want to go back home. If you go out every day and you always thinking, well, when I go home, I will do this and that and tomorrow I have to do this. Right. So come back home every night. Safe. Lily Trujillo-Puckett, founder of Street Racing Kills. It was great to have you on California Insider. Thank you so much for having me. I'm very, very honored for you to have me. And then please visit my website at StreetRacingKills.org We want to ask you to sign up to our California Insider email list. You will receive exclusive updates on our upcoming documentary and get the latest inside stories on everything that's happening in California. Go to InsiderCA.com and sign up. Thank you for watching. Please click the icon on the left to subscribe to our channel. We bring you the most pressing issues California is facing with straightforward and in-depth interviews. See you in the next video.