The Beverly Hills Police Department is investigating a street race between two high-performance exotic cars.
NBC Los Angeles reports that a video of the race on YouTube has garnered hundreds of thousands of views. According to the report, the man who claims to own the two cars said he was protected by diplomatic immunity. NBC is also reporting the license plate is from Qatar.
In the video, a yellow Ferrari and a white Porsche 911 can be seen speeding through a residential street at high speeds on Saturday evening. The video also included an exchange between the journalist who captured the video and a man at the house where the Ferrari was parked.
Jacob Rogers, the journalist who recorded the video, said that the man outside the building where the Ferrari was parked confronted him because he was filming the cars.
“He told me verbatim, ‘I could have you killed and get away with it,'” Rogers said. “I told him, ‘the press is allowed to be here on the sidewalk on a public street.’ He said, ‘(Expletive) America’ and threw a cigarette at me.”
At a point during the race, the cars sped through a stop sign, and the Ferrari almost sideswiped the vehicle of a motorist that wasn’t involved in the race.
At the end of the video, the Ferrari’s engine started to smoke and the driver pulled it back into the driveway. Police officers could be seen arriving in the neighborhood.
Neighbors were upset about the street racing because they feared it endangered the lives of the residents in the neighborhood.
While the police officers were conducting their investigation, they were approached by a man who said he owned the cars. He denied speeding, running stop signs, or driving recklessly. He also said that he had diplomatic immunity.
According to a news release, the police said that because they did not personally see the violations, they “could not take any law enforcement action such as a citation or arrest.”
The police said that they have contacted the US State Department to inquire about the diplomatic status of the people involved and the legality of the vehicles driven on the road.
The renters of the home where the cars were parked refused to talk to NBC Los Angeles about the incident.
