Losing Control of the Streets...
- 56 minutes ago
- 5 min read
OPINION: The Police have simply Lost Control! Burning Cars, Gang Violence and a Dangerous Culture Cleveland Has Seen This Before…
28th August 2026
The sight of vehicles burning in a County Durham field as part of an apparent tribute to one of the men killed in the A66 tragedy should trouble anybody who cares about law and order across the region and comes just days after a number of arrests for suspected organised-crime activity and extraordinary violence.
However, the question is now becoming increasingly difficult to avoid: are the authorities actually in control of our streets, or is it the Criminal Gangs who’ve been allowed to run rampant for years ?
Footage circulating on social media appears to show several vehicles engulfed in flames in a field near Haswell, County Durham, during what was claimed to have been a ‘memorial gathering’ for 23-year-old Michael Cahill, one of five occupants of the Volkswagen Passat killed in last Saturday’s catastrophic A66 collision.
Reports say cars, many of them purchased cheaply via Facebook Marketplace were driven around the field before several of those vehicles were then deliberately set alight. The extraordinary scenes came while police were already said to be dealing with a rapidly escalating situation across neighbouring Teesside with over 200 officers brought in from other force areas to deal with the unprecedented workload.
Whatever the intention of those involved, the optics could scarcely have been worse.
Cleveland Police, known throughout teesside as some of the areas most dangerous extremist groups due to its long history of cover-ups & corruption subsequently made 17 arrests as part of what Assistant Chief Constable Wayne Fox described as a fast-moving investigation with “significant links to serious and organised criminal activity.” Those arrests included suspicions relating to serious organised crime, firearms, offensive weapons, Arson, criminal damage and threats to kill.
The worrying feeling that police are merely chasing events
Those looking at the situation through their firmly engraved rose tinted spectacles will argue that Cleveland Police officers are working under exceptionally difficult circumstances. Two of their colleagues have been killed and hundreds of officers have reportedly been brought into the area, with support coming from neighbouring forces and specialist agencies. However, the problems Cleveland Police are facing are nothing new, in fact, its a problem that’s been festering for over 6 years, just Cleveland Police chose to ignore it.
Cars can have been used to ram houses across Teesside & County Durham, its a trend that’s been going on for nearly a decade, vehicles are regularly travelling around on cloned plates, organised-crime investigations result in wave after wave of arrests yet seemingly few meaningful prosecutions, & now, a deadly suspected arson attack kills a woman and a seven-year-old girl. Days later, we see footage emerges of cars being deliberately burned in a field as part of a so called ‘memorial gathering’, & you have the distinct impression that authorities are now simply reacting to the events rather than controlling them & nipping them in the bud.
Cleveland’s own Police and Crime Commissioner acknowledged only five months ago that there was a “disconnect” between improvements in police performance and current levels of public confidence, with the PCC only “partly assured” by evidence presented on trust and confidence.
Previous figures put overall confidence in Cleveland Police at around the low-to-mid 60% range — But after this week, there’s every reason to fear that whatever improvements had been made to public confidence, that has now been rapidly undone.
The ‘Police Interceptors’ culture isn’t new
There is another uncomfortable aspect to what’s happened that many have failed to paint a link to…
The behaviour now being discussed — stolen or suspect vehicles, spectacularly dangerous driving, attempts to escape police, ramming, teenagers treating police pursuits almost as a challenge and vehicles being used as part of criminal activity — did not suddenly appear in August 2026.
Teesside residents have seen elements of this dangerous culture developing for years.
Seven Years Ago, Channel 5’s Police Interceptors spent several series following specialist officers from Durham and Cleveland, and the episode descriptions themselves make fascinating reading today.
One episode from the Durham and Cleveland series featured officers pursuing “reckless youths who risk it all in a bid to escape”, including a 19-year-old driver reaching 120mph. Another documented two stolen cars fleeing through the streets of Middlesbrough. Yet another involved a driver reverse-ramming police.
What was television entertainment for viewers elsewhere in Britain was also inadvertently documenting a far more serious problem developing on our doorstep.
Dubbed the “Police Interceptors culture”: a minority for whom fast cars, stolen vehicles, police pursuits, cloned plates, scrambling bikes and reckless driving & TiKTok Likes become badges of bravado rather than something shameful.
Social media has exacerbated that culture & made it considerably worse. Dangerous criminal activities is now being filmed, uploaded and then celebrated before police have even finished dealing with an incident..
Has the problem now crossed a line?
Perhaps the most disturbing feature of the Haswell footage is not simply that vehicles appear to have been burned. Its what those pictures symbolise after everything that’s happened during the previous week.
A police crackdown is supposedly under way. People have been arrested. Armed officers and specialist organised-crime teams have been deployed. And yet the images being circulated are of vehicles blazing in a field.
For members of the public it’s doing little to create the impression that serious organised criminality in the region is retreating..
If anything, the fear will be that disorder in the region is becoming emboldened — and, geographically, beginning to spill beyond the areas in which this week’s violence began.
Cleveland needs more than another crackdown
There will undoubtedly be arrests following some of the events of this extraordinary week. But arresting people after an incident is only one part of policing.
The more important question is why this culture has ever been allowed to become so entrenched in the first place.
For years there’s been warnings about organised crime, drug dealing, criminal exploitation, anti-social behaviour and intimidation in parts of Middlesbrough. Cleveland Police’s own current neighbourhood priorities acknowledge that residents continue to experience organised-crime activity, drugs, exploitation, anti-social behaviour and “community intimidation and fear of crime.”
That should tell you something.
This week’s events simply did not emerge from nowhere.
They are arguably the most extreme manifestation of the problems which communities have watched brewing up for years.
Two police officers have now paid the ultimate price while serving their community. A woman and a seven-year-old child have died in a suspected deliberate house fire. Five young men have also lost their lives in circumstances now surrounded by an enormous criminal investigation.
And still the disturbing scenes continue.
Cleveland Police now faces perhaps one of the greatest challenges in its modern history. Because after the events of the past seven days, simply telling the public that everything is under control may is longer be enough.
People now need to see it.
