ACLU vows to fight proposal to arrest street-race spectators

Dan Kulin and Launce Rake

Wednesday, Feb. 18, 2004 | 11:38 a.m.

Metro Police want to try to reduce illegal street racing by going after the spectators who provide audiences for the racers.

But a lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union of Nevada said the group will fight the proposed law, which he said would make criminals out of people who haven't committed a crime.

"We at the ACLU have some very serious constitutional concerns about an ordinance that criminalizes being in a particular place but not involved in criminal activity," ACLU attorney Allen Lichtenstein said.

Police are asking the Clark County Commission to pass a law that would make watching an illegal street race a crime.

Metro Sgt. Keith Bowers asked for the new law so police would have another way of attacking the street races, which he said attract crowds of between 1,000 and 2,000 on warm weekend nights in the Las Vegas Valley.

"Without the spectators there is no sport really," Bowers said. "Ninety percent of the people there are there to watch and be seen."

Until recently, Bowers often dealt with illegal street races while working the graveyard shift in the southwest part of the valley. He said that catching the racers was often difficult and dangerous because when police arrived at a race all the spectators would leave too, which put another 500 to 1,000 vehicles on the road.

"They would scatter and it would be very hard to find that one car in a crowd," he said.

The ordinance would define anyone within 500 feet of a drag race, or a site where people are preparing to race, as a spectator if the person came to watch the event.

Violations of county ordinances can result in $1,000 fines or six months in jail.

Erin Breen, director of the Safe Community Partnership at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, said the proposed law seems like it would lead to less street racing.

"Chances are there would be a lot less of this happening if there was no one to show off for," Breen said.

Bowers said similar laws against watching illegal street races are already in place in San Diego and Los Angeles, and have been upheld by the courts.

The commission set a March 2 hearing for the ordinance.

Lichtenstein said the ACLU will attend the March hearing and oppose the law, which he said would make criminals out of people for "simply being at the wrong place at the wrong time." Lichtenstein said he was not familiar with the legal challenges Bowers referred to regarding any similar laws in California, but said the courts have often ruled that "you have to do something criminal to commit a crime."