'Operation Braking News' shuts down 'car meet-ups' with 22 arrests

Four "car meet-up events" at Jacksonville locations Saturday, June 27, led to the Sheriff's Office and Florida Highway Patrol arresting 22 people in the agencies' "Operation Braking News" street-racing crackdown.

Sheriff T.K. Waters said investigators learned ahead of time of the potentially disruptive and dangerous gatherings downtown and at the Tinseltown movie theater, Regal Cinemas at The Avenues and Big Lots on Old St. Augustine Road.

"Experience has taught us that these events are not merely gathering for car enthusiasts, rather drivers descend on select locations in large numbers and engage in criminally reckless behavior," Waters said.

"Before anyone says that we're just picking on young people in the car community having good, clean fun, let me stress that traffic fatalities hugely eclipse the number of murders in Duval County," the sheriff said. "Since the beginning of this year, we have had 100 traffic fatals in comparison to 24 murders"

Charges included street racing, fleeing or attempting to elude law enforcement, resisting law enforcement and illegal possession of firearms and drugs. Another 28 traffic citations also were handed out, and officers seized seven vehicles and four guns.

Waters warned that spectators also can be issued expensive civil citations for attending these events. He said car shows are fine, "but when you go into a parking lot that's owned by somebody else and you destroy their property and then you take that activity onto our streets, we're going to find you, we're going to arrest you."

He showed video of drivers doing burnouts with smoke billowing and crowds surrounding them taking pictures and video.

The arrests follow at least two other major operations announced by the Sheriff's Office in 2024 and 2022. In the first, dubbed "Operation Decelerate," about 115 officers were assigned to the what Waters called one of the more robust responses to street racing the department has conducted. It resulted in five arrests and over 70 citations from a street racing event that was planned on social media. In some of the videos, young people could be seen hanging out of car windows as drivers spun out in circles burning rubber and nearly hitting people in the crowd that gathered to watch.

During that 2024 news briefing, the sheriff also referenced new state legislation that enhanced penalties for street racing ― SB 1764 increased maximum fines for first-time offenses from $1,000 to $2,000. Additionally, people who commit second offenses within a year could face third-degree felony charges.

Two years earlier after about three months of investigating illegal street racing, the Sheriff's Office and Florida Highway Patrol announced the arrests of 36 people on 631 misdemeanors and felonies. That included $92,510 in traffic fines and 13 vehicles seized, along with drugs and seven guns.

This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: 'Operation Braking News' shuts down 'car meet-ups' with 22 arrests

Reporting by Scott Butler, Jacksonville Florida Times-Union / Florida Times-Union

USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect

Copyright Reuters or USA Today Network via Reuters Connect

This story was originally published June 30, 2026 at 1:06 PM.