A Vallejo couple returned home from a Hawaiian vacation this week to find an unpleasant surprise: their car had been stolen and set on fire as part of an illegal sideshow.
“Hawaii was good. Coming home — not so great,” said the Vallejo resident, who declined to give her name.
Thieves stole the Infiniti G37 IPL, her prized possession, right out of her driveway, she said. They then drove it straight to a sideshow and set it on fire.
Get a weekly recap of the latest San Francisco Bay Area housing news. Sign up for NBC Bay Area’s Housing Deconstructed newsletter.
“They broke all the windows out,” said the woman. “They kicked all the doors in. They jumped on the roof of the hood, and then they stuffed a rag in the gas tank and lit it on fire.”
The Vallejo resident didn’t learn what happened to the car until a neighbor spotted photos of it on social media. Police notified her Wednesday that the car — or what was left of it — had been taken to a tow yard.
It’s the second weekend in a row that participants in Vallejo sideshows have stepped things up a notch, setting cars on fire while doing donuts.
“They’re stealing our cars to entertain each other, and they don’t care about the utter destruction that they do to these cars,” she said. “It’s just really scary to know that people just don’t care. They want instant gratification and they don’t care who they hurt to get it.”
Vallejo police did not respond to a request for information on the stolen car and recent sideshow fires. But the department did tell NBC Bay Area last month that they realize sideshows are a dangerous nuisance, and that it’s doing its best while understaffed.
For her part, the woman said she’s crushed. Not only is her car irreplaceable, but her sense of safety has been destroyed.
“People don’t realize that the sideshows are built by stolen cars,” she said. “And it could be anyone’s car. It was just my car last weekend.”
