A 22-year-old Bronx man was arrested after police linked him to a street takeover near the Bay Terrace Shopping Center in Bayside and a second car meetup nearly seven miles south in Queens Village, ending with a stolen Dodge Charger slamming into a stone wall and a parked Hyundai. Macdiel Mejia-Avila, of Victor Street in the Van Nest section of the Bronx, now faces multiple charges tied to the early morning chase and crash.
According to qns.com, a detective with the Patrol Borough Queens North Community Response Team observed Mejia-Avila recklessly driving a burgundy 2020 Dodge Charger without license plates just before 1 a.m. He allegedly drove the car at a high rate of speed, letting it drift and spin near vehicles and pedestrians who had to move out of the way to avoid being struck. A further investigation determined the Charger had been reported stolen, and the vehicle's owner had not given Mejia-Avila permission to take it, according to the same outlet.
The Bayside takeover was not an isolated flashpoint that night. The Queens Chronicle reports that NYPD's 111th Precinct responded just after midnight to a 911 call about vehicles racing near 26th Avenue and Bell Boulevard, and that multiple vehicles dispersed from that intersection before officers arrived.
Chase Ends in a Stone Wall and a Parked Car
Police said that when detectives activated their lights and sirens, Mejia-Avila continued driving rather than stopping. He crashed the Charger into a stone wall and a parked Hyundai at the intersection of Range Street and 87th Avenue in Queens Village, per the qns.com account. The Hyundai's owner reported damage exceeding $250 to the vehicle's front passenger and rear passenger doors, while a property owner reported similar damage to the stone wall.
Court records described in the report show Mejia-Avila facing a complaint charging him with criminal possession of stolen property in the third and fourth degree, criminal endangerment, criminal mischief and other related crimes, per qns.com. The Queens Chronicle, citing police, described a differing list of charges — reckless endangerment, unauthorized use of a vehicle, criminal possession of stolen property, fleeing an officer in a motor vehicle, illegal speed contest and reckless driving. The two outlets' accounts of the exact charges do not match.
Mejia-Avila pleaded not guilty to the charges at his arraignment before Queens Criminal Court Judge Jennifer Tubridy, who granted him supervised release and ordered him to return to court on Nov. 17, according to the report.
Part of a Wider Pattern of Takeovers
The Bayside and Queens Village incidents fit into a broader run of street-racing gatherings across the borough and beyond. Separately, Fox 5 New York reports that police are still seeking eight people for reckless endangerment in connection with a different Queens street takeover, where roughly 100 cars flooded an intersection, participants set a fire in the street, and someone jumped onto the hood of a marked NYPD patrol car, cracking its windshield. Police have seized at least two vehicles linked to that gathering, and no arrests had been made in that case as of the report.
The phenomenon extends beyond city limits, too. According to Fox News, Suffolk County police arrested 15 people and impounded seven vehicles after numerous cars shut down Sawgrass Drive in Medford on Aug. 15 with stunts, donuts and burnouts; fourteen of those suspects were charged with participating in and spectating an unlawful speed contest. In a separate Suffolk operation, police arrested three people and impounded ten vehicles after at least 200 ATVs, dirt bikes and motorcycles poured onto roads in Hauppauge and Brentwood.
What the Stolen-Property Charge Involves
Under New York law, criminal possession of stolen property in the fourth degree is codified at Penal Law § 165.45, according to the New York State Senate's legislative records. Court jury-instruction materials from the New York Courts cite subdivision (7) of that same statute in connection with the fourth-degree offense.
