Santee has become the latest city in San Diego County to crack down on e-bike violations, following a series of late-night incidents, safety concerns and recent crashes involving riders and cars.<\/p>\n
The Santee Sheriff\u2019s Station conducted an enforcement operation last Thursday, issuing 12 citations and confiscating 10 electric motorcycles. Deputies also made roughly 100 public contacts, providing riders and parents with educational materials focused on safe riding and compliance with the law.<\/p>\n
The increased enforcement comes after residents reported troubling behavior involving e-bike riders in neighborhoods.<\/p>\n
Santee resident Jeremy Zaleski said he captured video of one incident just after midnight on March 22 using a Ring camera at his home. The footage shows a masked rider on his front porch ringing the doorbell, performing a wheelie and riding off with a group of e-bikers. Nearby homes recorded similar activity.<\/p>\n
\u201cI feel unsafe, concerned, these actions are getting worse and worse, they\u2019re going from riding down busy streets, doing wheelies in traffic, to now they\u2019re riding up in front yards… it\u2019s concerning,\u201d Zaleski said.<\/p>\n
Zaleski said the behavior goes beyond harmless pranks.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese kids think they\u2019re all pranks but they can get dangerous real quick. Real life actions have real life consequences, the next neighbor might not be as kind as I was and just call the sheriff, they might take things into their own hands,\u201d Zaleski said.<\/p>\n
He added that the late-night incidents \u2014 involving riders dressed in dark clothing and covering their faces \u2014 feel more serious than typical juvenile behavior.<\/p>\n
\u201cNext time it might not be a prank, they might push the boundary and decide to come into somebody\u2019s house then it\u2019s another issue. The homeowner could be armed and these kids could meet the wrong home owner, it\u2019s concerning. They don\u2019t know whos\u2019 behind that door they ride up on, it\u2019s a dangerous game they\u2019re playing,\u201d Zaleski said.<\/p>\n
Zaleski said he supports the sheriff\u2019s department\u2019s enforcement efforts and hopes the consequences will deter dangerous behavior.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m glad to hear it, glad to hear they\u2019re finally cracking down and kids will understand consequences of their actions. Impounding bike, imposing fines, these kids are going to learn one way or the other,\u201d Zaleski said.<\/p>\n
This story was originally reported for broadcast by NBC San Diego. AI tools helped convert the story to a digital article, and an NBC San Diego journalist edited the article for publication.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Santee has become the latest city in San Diego County to crack down on e-bike violations, following a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":244703,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[74,76,75,4891],"class_list":{"0":"post-244702","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-diego","8":"tag-san-diego","9":"tag-san-diego-headlines","10":"tag-san-diego-news","11":"tag-santee"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244702","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=244702"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244702\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/244703"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=244702"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=244702"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=244702"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}