Independence Day does not mean freedom for street racers to pretend Colorado’s public roads are the Daytona Speedway.

Local law enforcement is bracing for an increase in souped-up vehicles speeding on private and public roadways as July 4^th weekend stretches into Monday.

Street racing has been around since the invention of cars, but the pandemic saw a resurgence in the activity when the less-crowded open roads beckoned to people looking for a place to blow off steam.

Since the pandemic faded, while Interstate 25 and Interstate 70 got more crowded with traffic, street racing also continued, to the detriment of citizens who happened to be on the road at the same time.

The deadliest clash came last month, when a Glen Haven firefighter was fatally shot when the truck he was driving with his family apparently got in the way of some races, police say.

Still, data compiled by Denver police indicates 911 calls and arrests are down in recent months.

In 2020 during the COVID 19 shutdown, Denver police received 505 calls on 911 related to street racing compared with 318 in 2021 and 107 so far in 2022. The DPD stressed that this does not indicate how many street racing events occurred, only the calls they took in.

In 2020 as the pandemic spread, Denver police made 111 arrests related to street racing. This year from Jan. 1 to June 27 there have been 23. Those charges include drag racing, reckless driving, speed contest, speed contest-aiding or facilitating, and speed exhibition-aiding or facilitating.

Statistics in Aurora obtained by The Denver Gazette indicate that street racing remains a popular activity. Citizens alerted police to at least least 90 separate street racing-related from May 18 through June 28. Reports varied, but most of them happened in the early morning hours starting around midnight. Calls came in from East Iliff Avenue and Tower Road, East 19^th Avenue and Clinton, Interstate 225 northbound and Colfax Avenue, and East 6^th Avenue and Peoria Street.

Between the hours of 9 p.m. and 2 a.m., cars sped past early childhood learning centers, careened near elementary schools and hung out in Best Buy, Target and Hobby Lobby parking lots. Some of the calls originated from lonely two-lane roads and others started at warehouse facilities with huge empty parking lots, like the Amazon Fulfillment Center on East 19th Avenue around Gun Club Road. 

On June 18, Father’s Day weekend, a street racing event turned deadly when an Estes Park father of three was shot and killed on eastbound I-70 between Tower Road and Colfax while driving his family back home from a camping trip.

That horrific wrong-place-wrong-time tragedy happened at around 5:30 p.m.

Aurora police said John “Cowboy” Jaros, 37,  had just driven around vehicles which had stopped in the road for a street racing event when two shots were fired. One hit his Dodge Ram pickup and the other hit Jaros, whose wife and children were also in the truck.

“In a split second, these three poor babies were in the truck sitting in the back seat and here’s his wife having to pull the car over on I-70,” said family friend Marie Cenac. She said Katie Jaros had to reach across her dying husband to take the steering wheel. 

Cenac said Jaros was a volunteer Glen Haven firefighter and was active in Rooftop Rodeo.

“He would give you the shirt off of his back,” she said.

Katie Jaros told the Denver Gazette she has been overwhelmed with the support from the community as she “walks through the grieving process” with her children.

This past week, 20-year-old Jeremy Rocha was arrested on suspicion of first-degree murder and four counts of attempted first-degree murder in connection with Jaros’ death. His next hearing is late this month in Adams County court. 

Dry roads welcome late-night speeding

Street racing is holding steady in some cities and increasing in others. Denver Police Division Chief Ron Thomas said racing on Denver’s streets and area highways is not on the rise, but it happens year-round now due to the fact that mild winters have meant fewer blizzards and icy roads to navigate. Street racing used to be confined mostly to the summer months.

He said his officers prevent many events from happening by monitoring social media as street racing groups make spur-of-the-moment shout-outs to take to the highways.

“We try to beat them to the punch. We go to locations where they’ve historically gone. When we show up they move elsewhere and we follow them,” said Thomas.

He added that when street racing groups move to bordering cities, law enforcement radios alert each other to be on the lookout handing off the duties.

“The places where they typically gather are industrial parks where there’s less traffic, less people and attention. They may show off their cars and spin around, they may have short speed contests.”

Thomas said the impromptu speeding gets as high as 100 mph for short stretches, sometimes near residential areas. People tend to gather after dark, typically around 10 p.m., and sometimes close down the highways to oncoming traffic in order to have an empty, usually short, stretch for high speed.

Hampden Avenue, South Federal and Northeast Denver in the warehouse district around Montbello are Denver hotspots.

Aurora police use Facebook to gather information about potential street racers who break the law. One recent APD post asks for help in identifying a person who was “driving recklessly in a private property parking lot, doing 360-degree burnouts, damaging the parking lot.”

During another street racing gathering June 2, Aurora police made two arrests, wrote 25 tickets, towed three vehicles and issued two abatement notices.

Surveillance video from a nearby business captured during the incident showed a truck doing circles in the parking lot with a person hanging off of the bed. The video has gotten 46,000 views. 

Some people complained in the comments that police should be out solving major crimes instead of bothering people trying to have a good time. Others thanked law enforcement for cracking down. 

One Aurora citizen who wished to go unnamed for fear of retribution told The Denver Gazette that he feels endangered just taking a routine walk as cars zoom past his home.

“I was walking my dog awhile back and two cars were racing in the opposite direction on Laredo Street right in front of the Dartmouth school. It was around 8 pm.”

Dartmouth Elementary is at 3050 South Laredo St. in Aurora.

The traumatized resident said that the morning after he hears cars race at night, he finds tire tracks. Once, he witnessed a man whom he thought was driving drunk and speeding wreck his car, but no one wanted to approach the driver or call police in case he had a weapon.

‘We’re just chillin’

Car enthusiasts say they get a bad rap because street racing is only a small percentage of what they do. The Facebook group Nationwide Productions admits its members do street race, but said they also participate in legal activities like car meets and cruises. Nationwide Productions has 108,000 followers and describes itself as a “close-knit group of car enthusiasts, racers, drifters, hobbyists, friends and family.”

The group is not shy about its passion for cars and regularly posts about upcoming racing or cruising events.

“We have car meets. We chill and talk. We are car enthusiasts,” said an unidentified Nationwide administrator from behind the steering wheel on a recent  Facebook live chat. “We just cruise. We just chill.”

The Denver Police Department actually hosts community drag racing events at Bandimere Speedway, even getting in on the action utilizing a previously seized 1996 Corvette driven by Detective Bart Malpass.

Thomas said the force has “plenty of teeth” this July 4 weekend to enforce street racing violations  over July 4 weekend. “We are prepared for all of the fireworks and the increased call load, but we are also prepared for a street racing enforcement as well,” said Thomas. “There are groups that we’ll be focused on.”