{"id":376250,"date":"2026-06-26T20:18:17","date_gmt":"2026-06-26T20:18:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/376250\/"},"modified":"2026-06-26T20:18:17","modified_gmt":"2026-06-26T20:18:17","slug":"im-a-better-rider-than-you-teens-e-motorcycle-impounded-after-trying-to-outrun-police-in-o-c-park","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/376250\/","title":{"rendered":"‘I’m a better rider than you’: Teen’s e-motorcycle impounded after trying to outrun police in O.C. park"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A teen riding an electric motorcycle in an Orange County park learned a tough lesson after trying to go wheel to wheel against a police officer: motorcycle cops are very hard to outrun. <\/p>\n

The pursuit, captured on body camera footage, began on June 17 just before 1:30 p.m. at Grijalva Park in Orange where residents have long complained about unsafe e-bike riding.<\/a> Teens are frequently spotted sans helmet speeding past pedestrians or doing stunts that could hurt themselves or others, residents say. <\/p>\n

In this case, the 13-year-old boy was riding an e-motorcycle without a helmet when an officer initiated a stop inside the park, police said. But the boy thought he could give the officer the slip. It didn\u2019t work. <\/p>\n

\u201cI would stop if I were you,\u201d the motor officer tells the teen over the motorcycle\u2019s public address system, according to a video posted on Orange Police Department\u2019s social media. \u201cThis is a really, really bad idea.\u201d <\/p>\n

The officer tried to appeal to him, asking him to consider what his parents would think and reminding him that his face was on camera so he would be caught eventually. <\/p>\n

But the teen, who was not identified, continued on, apparently under the impression he could outrun \u2014 or out ride \u2014 the motorcycle officer. The officer had some thoughts on that: \u201cI promise I\u2019m a better rider than you,\u201d the officer said over the PA system.<\/p>\n

The officer chased the rider through a parking lot, over curbs and across grass and dirt trails, at one point telling the teen cheekily, \u201cOh look, I\u2019m still here.\u201d <\/p>\n

After a few minutes the teen stopped and the officer instructed him to get off the bike. But the chase wasn\u2019t over that easily. The teen quickly took off again and the motor officer was hot on his trail, the video shows. <\/p>\n

The pursuit came to an end after about five minutes when the officer pinned the teen\u2019s bike against a guardrail to force him to stop. The teen was cited on suspicion of nine violations: evading a police officer, violating the municipal code, riding in an unsafe manner in a city park on a motorized vehicle, not having license plates on the motorcycle, not wearing a helmet, not having a valid license or motorcycle license, not having registration, riding without proof of insurance and riding a motorcycle without mirrors, police said. Police also impounded the e-motorcycle.<\/p>\n

Since the teen is a minor, he was not taken into custody. Instead, the boy was released to his father and the violations will be sent to the Orange County district attorney\u2019s office, which will determine whether to file criminal charges, said Sgt. Trevor Cullen, a spokesperson for the Orange Police Department. <\/p>\n

Minors who speed and perform dangerous stunts on e-bikes on public streets have become a stubborn problem for communities across Southern California. And law enforcement agencies are cracking down. <\/p>\n

In a case that generated a national conversation, Orange County prosecutors in April filed felony charges against the mother of a 14-year-old boy<\/a> accused of hitting an 81-year-old man while doing wheelies on his e-motorcycle in Lake Forest. The man later died of his injuries. <\/p>\n

It was the third case this year in the county in which a parent has been criminally charged over their children illegally riding e-motorcycles. <\/p>\n

In Orange, the Police Department has received more than 20 calls about e-bikes at Grijalva Park since April 1. Last year, the city had 24 traffic collisions involving e-bikes, Cullen said. <\/p>\n

With summer approaching and children out of school, the department has deployed motor officers into the park to specifically address the problem of unsafe riding. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe number one thing is, we want anyone riding an e-bike to be safe\u2014juveniles or adults,\u201d Cullen said. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A teen riding an electric motorcycle in an Orange County park learned a tough lesson after trying to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":376251,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[163,165,164,20675,8825,1436,94616,125530,142376,2322,152222,236,152387,152388,360,152385,152384,152386],"class_list":["post-376250","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-anaheim","tag-anaheim","tag-anaheim-headlines","tag-anaheim-news","tag-april","tag-boy","tag-case","tag-e-motorcycle","tag-electric-motorcycle","tag-grijalva-park","tag-officer","tag-orange-police-department","tag-police","tag-stubborn-problem","tag-stunt","tag-teen","tag-trevor-cullen","tag-unsafe-e-bike","tag-well-rider"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/376250","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=376250"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/376250\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/376251"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=376250"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=376250"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=376250"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}