A swarm of dirt bikers terrorized Michele Rosenberg as she rode down McCulloh Street, ramming her car with such relentlessness that she and her husband drove directly to the Northwest police station, where a sergeant said there was little he could do.
Police say their options have been limited as they grapple with the nagging problem of dirt bikes in Baltimore.
It's too dangerous to chase them, they say. And while it is illegal to drive the vehicles in the city, there have been few ways to crack down on the young men who routinely ignore the rules, taunting law enforcement and threatening residents such as the Rosenbergs.
So city leaders are turning to new tactics.
A law took effect last month that allows police to seize any unlocked dirt bike - in an alley, driveway, front yard or street. A court can then order the bikes forfeited, and they are later destroyed.
"The fact of the matter is that these dirt bikes drive people in neighborhoods nuts," Police Commissioner Frederick H. Bealefeld III said. "We're not talking about filling jails full of dirt biker offenders. We'll seize the bike, and it is game over."
Stories of lawlessness jam e-mail inboxes of City Council members, who have struggled with the city's dirt-bike problem for at least a decade. Councilman William H. Cole IV recalls finding a website purporting to organize city rides. He skims YouTube for video clips of Baltimore riders showing off.
Councilwoman Belinda Conaway recalled a group repeatedly circling Lake Ashburton as if patrolling it.
The level of lawlessness can escalate. In April, a 19-year old man was sentenced to a 45 year prison term, with 10 suspended, for firing at city police officers who were trying to stop him from riding his dirt bike in the 1300 block of Pennsylvania Avenue.
"It is been an issue for so long that I remember talking to it about then-councilman Martin O'Malley," said Chris Muldowney, Vice President of Lauraville Improvement Association, referring to Maryland's governor, a city councilman from 1991 to 1999. "They've had little kids and dogs almost hit by dirt bikes, because that is the game I guess."
Muldowney says she no longer walks her small dogs in Herring Run Park in part because of the dirt bikers.
Occasionally, the police helicopter, Foxtrot, will follow bikers and radio patrol officer to tell them where they are. "We are literally keeping an eye on the person from the sky," said James H. Green, a police department attorney.
