As a Seattle resident, I’d be the primary to confess we’re not precisely a hub of automotive tradition. Old Subarus and the occasional previous Volvo wagon are often probably the most fascinating automobiles you will discover. As a end result, Seattle hasn’t actually had many points with takeovers or Mustangs crashing whereas leaving a Cars and Coffee occasion… till earlier this yr.
A month in the past, customers of the r/Seattle Reddit board discussed a very loud backfiring car they heard virtually each night time within the Belltown neighborhood of town. Belltown is without doubt one of the densest areas of city housing in Seattle, with over 13,000 residents in just half a square mile, which meant that dialogue of the loud car gained traction rapidly as hundreds of individuals have been being woken up almost each single night time.
Redditors surmised that the likeliest perpetrator, based mostly on dozens of eyewitnesses, was a modified Dodge. Specifically, this particular modified Dodge, pushed by a 20-year-old man often known as “srt.miles” on Instagram. The automotive—a particular tan-and-black tiger-striped Dodge Charger Hellcat Jailbreak with multi-colored LED headlights—was arduous for a lot of dwelling in such a dense space to overlook. If that wasn’t sufficient to go on, srt.miles has dozens of video posts on his Instagram web page the place he drives at excessive charges of pace together with his apparently straight-piped, crackle-tuned Hellcat by way of the center of Seattle’s Belltown neighborhood.
Those Instagram movies ended up as admissible proof. In a courtroom submitting this week, police allege that the person behind the srt.miles account has been repeatedly pulled over and cited for numerous causes since January, and quite a few Seattle cops have heard and seen the tan Charger in and round Belltown.
The officer writing the report was a little bit of gearhead, and claims that he might inform the automotive he heard racing by way of town was positively a Charger, as he’s “intimately familiar with this exhaust note, as I used to compete in the NHRA Top Fuel racing circuit… my race team ran … a “Hemi” engine. One of the diagnostic aids for [tuning] was paying attention to the sound of the exhaust.” The video above demonstrates simply how loud this automotive is, so he positively heard the exhaust observe.
Conversations with native residents in regards to the automotive led Seattle Police to the Reddit threads in regards to the car, the place the Instagram web page was linked. An officer was in a position to match the automotive on Instagram to 1 he’d seen driving across the metropolis, and famous the presence of a video the place the SRT was recorded doing 107 mph. To additional dispel doubt, the officer famous the driving force “stated that he had ‘almost 700,000 followers’ on his social media” and allegedly even handed over his cellphone displaying the srt.miles Instagram account logged in as an administrator. Prosecutors have now charged the alleged driver with two counts of reckless driving.
Redditors in Seattle have predictably rejoiced because the case was introduced. The degree of noise and excessive speeds listed here are extremely annoying and wildly unsafe, and so they additionally give auto lovers a horrible identify, so hopefully, the courtroom can order the driving force to get an electrical Smart automotive for a yr as penance. In the meantime, Belltown residents can get some sleep.