Fargo wages an air war on street racing.

After the Fargo City Commission voted down a proposal to create a special task force to crack down on street racing, law enforcement showed they were already up to the "task".  We've already featured a few stories this year about the extra collaboration effort law enforcement has been implementing.  Mostly, it has been Highway Patrol airplane assists on high-speed chases.  Cases where further police street pursuit may present a danger to the public.

Friday's exercise was more like a show of power.

It was an action I'm sure that was born out of frustration.  Frustration the community certainly shares with law enforcement. In the first week of May, Fargo held a town hall on the issue of noise and public safety.  Addressing the community, Fargo Police Chief David Zibolski plans to bring back the Traffic Safety Unit in 2023. But, that's a year away!  What about the current street racing issue?

Based on the results, law enforcement addressed that issue in a spectacular fashion.

After handing out 100 citations in just four hours, in just one evening, I believe law enforcement has the right to take a victory lap.  But Chief Zibolski wanted violators to be aware this was no one-time event.

“We’ll be doing several of those throughout the course of the summer. North Dakota Highway Patrol has been very extremely collaborative and helpful in terms of allowing us to use their plane. It helps us a lot, especially with the cars that don’t stop.

 

We’ve also collaborated with Cass County and West Fargo to kind of put together a combined traffic enforcement effort in our region if you will. A lot of the issues are happening in Fargo proper,”

Using airplanes from the North Dakota Highway Patrol to identify violators and provide vital information to law enforcement on the ground must come at a monetary cost. According to NDHP Captain Bryan Niewand, that's not necessarily true.

"There really is no extra cost. Again, we have an aircraft we budget for the use of it every year. We have three pilots that our agency has trained to fly that aircraft so there are individuals that are being employed by the North Dakota Highway Patrol anyways. Other individuals inside that vehicle again are working for our agency"

So they're all just working together and all just doing their jobs.  I would imagine 100 citations would also raise funds to cover the four hours of extra effort.

Nice work officers!


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