6 more OC parents charged in e-bike, e-moto crackdown

I want to get to some news out of Orange County because we were just there. Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer, he has been out front when it comes to e-bikes and e-motos. These crashes that have proved to be deadly, those children illegally riding these e-motos. And he has announced that six more parents in Orange County are now facing child endangerment charges. I believe it's 12 total parents since January of this year. And I'm so glad that Todd Spitzer is taking the time out to join me here on Fox Local. Good to see you, Mr. Spitzer, as always. Thank you so much for taking the time out. OK, so let's see you. Thank you. Absolutely. You take this very seriously. Why don't you start with the latest new charges? Six parents involved, right? Yeah, those are the new charges. I mean, so far we've charged 12 parents in Orange County with child endangerment. and then we have 50 other parents under investigation so i don't see this stopping anytime soon did you say 50 as in five zero we yeah so we currently have 12 active parents that are currently being prosecuted and then we have 50 other parents wow that are under active investigation that we may or may not charge i mean it's too early in the investigation to know that at this point. Okay, can you break down some of these cases for us so that we really can help get the word out? Well, I want to generalize and tell you what the distinction is about why we prosecute parents. This is not just for furnishing of the e-bike or e-motorcycle to a young person. In order to charge child endangerment, we have to show not just the furnishing of one of these e-bikes, but we have to show that the parent had knowledge that their child was operating this illegally, was riding unsafely, had injuries that occurred as a result of the way they rode. So we have to show above and beyond to charge a parent criminally. It's not just providing the bike. That's not the crime. What the crime is, is they continue to enable their child to ride one of these e-bikes, full knowing that their child is engaging in unlawful and dangerous activity. But they continue to allow their child to do this. Okay, so you have a couple of examples right there. What's the difference, first and foremost, between an e-bike and an e-moto? Are they one of the same? No. So an e-bike has various classifications. But in general, when a parent furnishes an e-bike to a child who's under 16, it has pedals on it. It can't go over 20 miles per hour. And it doesn't have a throttle. It's all activated by the pedals. But when you start getting into a mechanism where there's a throttle or there's foot pegs and no longer a pedal, it changes the complexity of that particular vehicle. So this particular vehicle I'm standing in front of, this thing can go 45 miles per hour. The one in the foreground, that can go 60 miles per hour. These are completely unlawful for kids under 16. these are e-motorcycles and if you're under 16 you're not allowed to possess it and you're not allowed to ride it on the street i'm looking at some of the cases some of these involved an 11 year old a 13 year old 12 year old a 14 year old so to your point under 16 years old in other words you have to have a driver's license is that correct to operate one of these on the road No. So you're not even allowed to have these on the street. These are not. They're not street legal at all on the street. So then where would you ride one of these? Motorcycles are not legal. These are for off road use. OK. But in order to ride an e-bike and be legal, it has to go under 20 miles per hour. And you have to you don't need a license for that. So but what these kids are doing, Marla, is they're modifying these bikes. So For example, you can see on one of these, this e-motorcycle, there's an electronic screen. And what the kids do is they can, they have an app on their phone and they can override the speed by changing the speed from their phone because there's a chip inside these mechanisms that the manufacturers provide. So when a police officer pulls them over, it might be only going 20 miles per hour or capable of going 20, but as a result of the fact that it's manipulated, it can go over 20 miles per hour, which makes it unlawful. So these kids are very sophisticated now. There's social media influencers on YouTube and Instagram that are explaining to these young people how to override the speed. So when a parent buys it originally, it's all legal, but then it gets modified over time the parents were bringing charges against have knowledge of the modification in some cases they actually participate in modifying the bike for their child or their child has modified it they're aware of it their child gets injured and irrespective of all of that conduct the parent continues to allow their child to ride these particular vehicles that's the difference that's what people need to understand. That's crossing from regular legal behavior into criminal conduct where despite the fact your child's riding unlawfully, too high a speed, getting injured, breaking bones, head injuries, the parent continues to facilitate that conduct and let their child ride a vehicle like this. And what kind of charges are we talking about? I mean, how much time could a parent actually spend behind bars because of this? Well, we don't know yet because we've charged, we have 12 active cases. None of them have gone to sentencing. But for example, the child Benson Wynn, who died in Garden Grove, 13 years old, his father's charged with felony child endangerment and is looking up to six years in state prison. Well, that should send a clear message, right? Well, I can tell you it's mostly anecdotal, but there's a lot of dinner conversations going on in Orange County as a result of our Ride Safely program. The people do know, and it's gotten a lot of attention, that I will prosecute parents. Again, we don't know the outcome, but if we end up in jury trial, we'll obviously understand that someday. But my point being is people do know in this county and the word is out on the street the orange county district attorney's willing to prosecute you as a parent if you allow your child to engage in this activity you created this unit that you're referring to back in May of this year it's become such an issue in Orange County uh are other DA's and other counties doing the same So we've been contacted by the country of Germany. They're very interested in our program. So we're sharing that with them. Nathan Hawkman, the DA of L.A. County, called me about our buyback. Like these two bikes, they were turned in and we they got there were gift cards given to the individuals who turn these in. These were vehicles that were turned in because people said, we don't want to have these anymore. So these two are examples, but from our buyback. We budgeted $100,000 for our buyback, and we got over 1,000 vehicles turned in by young people, parents, citizens, who said, you know what? Enough is enough. We shouldn't have those vehicles. Wow. Okay. OK, well, I'm so glad that you were able to hop on. I learned a whole lot from you today. Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer, thank you so much. And I think this is going to give parents some pause as we are approaching the holidays. And parents might think this might be a good gift, but you may want to think twice, right? You want to think three times. Three times. All right. Very good. D.A. Spitzer, thanks so much for your time.