KALAMAZOO, Mich. - Residents of the city's north side are fed up with a group of party-goers destroying their neighborhood. Tuesday they took action by meeting with community leaders and Kalamazoo Public Safety to put an end to the "X-Train."
"Our whole goal as deterrants, we’d rather have people not participate and let them know that we’re going to do enforcement than have to go out and arrest a bunch of folks and write a bunch of tickets and tow a bunch of cars," said KDPS Captain David Boysen during an interview after the meeting.
Monday, Fox 17 aired cell phone video of this past weekend's "X-Train" in the north side neighborhood. Police and residents described it as a caravan of dozens of cars, sometimes as many as 100, parading through neighborhoods loudly and leaving behind a trail of litter, broken bottles, damaged property and wrecked parked cars. And it happens all the time, not just on weekends.
"When you got to get up and go to church in the morning and you been up all night or if you have to go to work, there’s no excuse," said Capt. Boysen, feeling the residents frustrations. "Go home."
Police say they've been hearing complaints about the "X-Train" for years and they've taken them seriously. Law enforcement with the city, county and state arrested 20 people over the weekend on 29 criminal charges, including drug possession and driving while intoxicated. They say they'll be out again this weekend, trying to stop the "X-Train."
"We’d prefer if people would just stay home," said Capt. Boysen. "We want people to have a good time. But when it’s 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 o’clock in the morning a lot of good folks aren’t able to sleep at night. We’re getting a lot of complaints on it. Hopefully they’ll hear our message and they won’t participate."
