Anxious Chatsworth residents upset over street takeovers

(FOX 11) - Chatsworth residents are fed up feeling like prisoners in their own homes when wild drivers show up and take over intersections with their crazy stunts.

Rafael Castaneda is pretty fed up street takeovers and the people occupying intersections like his! He says, "They're loud.. they're rude."

At the intersection of Plummer and Mason this past weekend dozens of drivers swooped down on the intersection by Castaneda's home, Fast, and furiously, they did noisy donuts and left circles on top of circles of crusted rubber tread over the entire intersection.

As we've reported in the past they use social media to let each other know where to go and flee when they hear sirens.

Another neighbor named Jim says, "you can literally set you clock by it... (It happens) "... a couple times a week."

Says Jay, who preferred not to share his last name, "I think myself and a lot of residents in the area have gotten to the point where we feel like our calls and our pleas are kinda being ignored."

LAPD Spokesman Josh Rubenstein told FOX 11, "As a resident of Los Angeles I feel that same sort of pain and I can tell you that nobody is ignoring the police department whose asking for help."

But, to Casteneda if the police don't do more somebody could get killed. To Sam Phillips who works in the neighborhood, "I think its incredibly dangerous. It's reckless.")

In response Rubenstein told us, they do what they can. Crimes where somebody has been hurt or killed take precedence. As for those taking over intersections he says, "what they're doing is working in that gang mentality right now but we have to treat it accordingly ... t is an infraction. It isn't a felony"

What's making people like Rafael, Jay and Sam anxious continues.