Philadelphia police say dirt bike riders and a crowd outside Rivers Casino surrounded two of their vehicles early Sunday morning and vandalized them while officers were still inside, with a third police car damaged in an earlier similar incident in North Philadelphia.
The Rivers Casino incident began shortly after 2 a.m. when a police officer on patrol approached the casino on Delaware Avenue in Fishtown, where several dirt bike riders were performing doughnuts, police said.
The officer drove his vehicle to where a crowd had blocked entrances and exits of the parking lot. He began flashing the vehicle’s overhead lights and signaling its horn in an attempt to break up the crowd, police said.
Then an “an aggressive crowd jumped on the officer’s vehicle and banged on his windows,” according to a police report.
Another police vehicle arrived to help the first officer.
“The crowd then began pounding on that police vehicle and flattening its tires,” the reported stated.
The crowd dispersed as other officers arrived. Though two police vehicles were damaged, no officers were injured, police said.
Officers had to break up a similar incident at 12:30 a.m. Sunday on the 400 block of North Fifth Street in North Philadelphia when another police vehicle was vandalized.
Philadelphia has seen waves most weekends of dirt bikes and ATVs, which are illegal on city streets, riding in dozens if not hundreds down city streets, sometimes encircling institutions and businesses. The police department has been attempting to crack down on the gatherings.
