Crystal-clear surveillance video shows hundreds gathered to watch drag racing event in Duluth

DULUTH, Ga. — New surveillance video from Gwinnett County shows hundreds of people gathered in the streets to watch street racers perform stunts in a busy intersection.

Channel 2′s Gwinnett County Bureau Chief Tony Thomas was in Duluth, where a large network of cameras captured the stunt driving event earlier this year.

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Police have released crystal-clear new video of hundreds of people gathered at the intersection of Buford Highway and Old Peachtree Road to watch cars lay drag.

“There’s a whole lot of street racers out here. There’s like a thousand people out here,” dispatch told police at one point. “There’s like a thousand people out here.”

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The video shows police arrive and the chaotic scene unfold in real time. Police said five people were arrested during the event.

Duluth Officer Ted Sadowski said he hopes the video will make people stop and think twice before staging car events in his part of town.

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“Hopefully that spreads the word that Duluth don’t play,” Sadowski said. “These drivers may not have realized what they were up against. The city of Duluth has 347 cameras spread across the area.”

Sadowski said that along with the cameras, tag readers made it easy for officers to follow the path of the cars that sped away and identify some of the drivers.

Edilson Ordonez, 19, was arrested. Four other drivers have been charged but have yet to be found after police used photos from tag readers to identify the cars.

Duluth police said they’ve had one other organized street racing event prior to this one, but it was nothing like the most recent one.

“There were people standing in the middle of the road, in between cars as they are laying drag around them,” Sadowski said. “One guy is hanging out a window right now. In the back of trucks, out the window, no seatbelts.”

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