A 16-year-old girl went to watch cars drifting and doing donuts in a Lone Tree parking lot on August 10, and ended up in a hospital instead. A drifting car struck her, leaving her with a broken heel, a badly bruised hip, and a concussion — injuries severe enough that she has missed school, struggles to sleep because of the pain, and will not compete in track this year.
The crash, and the fact that no driver has been arrested more than two weeks later, is detailed in reporting by Denverite. According to the outlet's reporting, the girl's family, identified as Sasha Martinez-Aguilar and Darien Martinez-Aguilar, provided video of the crash along with social media messages tied to the case. Screenshots reviewed by the publication appear to show an Instagram user describing hitting someone with a car and triggering its airbags, though that account has not been confirmed as the driver involved.
The Lone Tree Police Department has denied a records request for the incident report, citing the ongoing investigation as its reason. Investigators say they knew a car meet group was heading into the area on August 10, but did not know exactly where the group would end up gathering. The department's monitoring of social media to pinpoint potential meets, the outlet reports, has not been enough to stay ahead of drivers who scatter the moment officers show up.
Why These Gatherings Are So Hard to Shut Down
Car meets and street takeovers unfold in parking lots, intersections, and highways, often involving speeding, drifting, donuts, and aggressive driving, and organizers coordinate locations and plans through Signal, Snapchat, Instagram, and Facebook group chats. The private, invite-only nature of those chats makes it difficult for law enforcement to track gatherings before they happen, according to the same reporting. Lone Tree police told the outlet that the meets are especially hard to combat because groups move fluidly across jurisdictions and drivers flee once officers arrive.
The 23rd Judicial District Attorney's Office is now consulting with Lone Tree police about what evidence would be needed to support an arrest, per the department. Investigators say they can use social media posts, comments, and other online activity to help identify suspects or witnesses, even when drivers scatter before police reach the scene.
Lone Tree isn't new to this problem. Multi-agency law enforcement operations in May 2021 identified the city as a major regional gathering site for street takeover groups, with a single event drawing an estimated 400 to 500 vehicles, according to the Colorado State Patrol. That 2021 operation involved 19 Denver-area agencies monitoring simultaneous gatherings across five cities. Colorado State Patrol officers have also found stolen cars, alcohol, drugs and weapons at car meets, underscoring the range of risks beyond the driving itself.
A Front Range-Wide Enforcement Puzzle
Lone Tree police say they will not chase street-racing drivers when doing so could increase public risk to bystanders, a stance that mirrors policy at other Front Range departments. Denver police officers may pursue vehicles only in the most serious cases, and the Denver Police Department maintains a dedicated street-racing team with officers from each district who patrol when more activity is expected. That team's proactive posture was on display when it stopped 19 individuals, impounded four vehicles, and cited or arrested four drivers during a late-June enforcement operation, as Hoodline previously reported.
Aurora has taken a different approach, loosening its pursuit rules to allow chases involving stolen cars, drunken driving and stolen guns. Other agencies have leaned on technology instead: Commerce City police paired automated license plate readers with a Drone as First Responder program to track fleeing street racers without triggering dangerous high-speed chases, a strategy Hoodline detailed after a driver hit 100 mph on Highway 2 and then fled from officers.
Colorado does maintain a statewide street racing task force, which includes multiple law enforcement agencies, district attorneys, and analysts working together across jurisdictions. During targeted regional enforcement operations in 2024, that working group conducted roughly 500 vehicle stops and issued 360 citations across Denver metro communities, according to CBS News Colorado. Street racing and takeovers became the top citizen complaint in Jefferson County by late 2025, with the working group logging 1,473 complaints in just the first nine months of that year after receiving nearly 2,000 complaints in 2024, the station reported.
Lawmakers and Cities Are Racing to Catch Up
State legislators introduced House Bill 26-1329 this year specifically to criminalize and set penalties for motor vehicle racing, street takeovers, coordinated takeovers, and stunt driving on public roadways, according to the Colorado General Assembly. Separately, Senate Bill 26-035 took effect on August 12, adding four license points for driving over 100 mph and requiring court summonses for repeat speeding offenders instead of mail-in fines, per reporting from Yellow Scene Magazine.
Some cities aren't waiting on the state. In May, the Broomfield City Council unanimously passed a local ordinance classifying vehicles used in illegal racing, drifting, burnouts and takeovers as public nuisances, giving police authority to impound them, CBS News Colorado reported. Broomfield police had responded to more than 90 street racing and takeover incidents in 2025 before the ordinance passed. Statewide, Colorado State Patrol troopers issued more than 43,900 speeding citations in 2025, with the agency identifying excessive speed as a leading cause of fatal and injury crashes.
The stakes of leaving these gatherings unchecked were made starkly clear in Colorado Springs earlier this year, when an illegal street race in the Briargate area in March resulted in a crash that killed a 77-year-old bystander. Two participants in that race turned themselves in and faced felony charges in May, Hoodline reported at the time. For now, anyone who witnesses street racing can report it online, though for the Lone Tree teenager and her family, that system has yet to produce an arrest.
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