Bigfoot crushes cars at a 2011 exhibition in Minot, N.D. Representative image; Louisville police say a different truck, Rhinomite, will crush the seized Charger. (U.S. Air Force photo by Staff Sgt. Keith Ballard, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons)
The 2009 Dodge Charger that Louisville police plan to flatten on Saturday is carrying a supercharged 6.2-liter Hellcat V8, an engine Dodge didn’t put in a Charger until the 2015 model year. Police say it was one of more than nine stolen parts they found on the car.
Officials announced Monday that a 12,000-pound monster truck named Rhinomite will crush the Charger during the Saturday evening performance of Hot Wheels Monster Trucks Live Glow-N-Fire at the KFC Yum! Center, WHAS11 reported. Louisville Metro Police seized the car at an illegal street takeover in Shawnee Park in 2024. Police traced the stolen parts to Detroit and Indianapolis.
“If you put people in danger when you’re behind the wheel, don’t be surprised when you lose your car,” LMPD Chief Paul Humphrey said. “We made a promise to seize these vehicles and we are delivering on it.” He said takeovers “aren’t shows, they’re crimes,” a message the department will deliver from the floor of a ticketed monster truck show.
What police haven’t said
The announcement doesn’t name the driver or say whether anyone was charged over the Shawnee Park takeover, the car or the stolen parts. It doesn’t explain why a car seized in 2024 is only now headed for the crusher. Nor does it say whether the owners of the stolen parts were identified, or list any of the parts beyond the engine.
In 2023, a year into Louisville’s crackdown, Metro Councilwoman Donna Purvis told WHAS11 that street racing had dropped locally but moved to cities such as Cincinnati and Indianapolis. Some of this Charger traveled the other way.
Seized cars, crushed cars
Louisville has done this before. On Sept. 17, 2025, Mayor Craig Greenberg started the crusher at LMPD’s Frankfort Avenue impound lot on a 2021 Dodge Durango SRT Hellcat valued at $100,000, seized at the 2024 Street Rod Nationals. Detectives said the SUV carried several stolen parts and so couldn’t be auctioned, WAVE reported. “We will seize your car and if it’s not legal for the streets, we will crush it,” Greenberg said.
Police haven’t said whether the Charger’s stolen parts are what ruled out a sale this time, but the two cases share a Hellcat powertrain and a list of stolen components.
Stolen parts have been a theme elsewhere, too: earlier this week we covered a Baltimore car-meet organizer sentenced to 96 months in federal prison over stolen muscle cars.
The city’s own numbers put Humphrey’s promise in proportion. Police seized 62 vehicles under the street racing ordinance in 2023, 70 in 2024 and 35 in 2025 through mid-September, a total of 167. Of those, WAVE reported, four had been auctioned, one scrapped and one crushed. WHAS11 reported the Durango was the first vehicle crushed under the ordinance, which makes Saturday’s Charger at least the second.
What the law allows
Louisville Metro Council passed its street racing ordinance on Oct. 27, 2022. It covers drag racing, street takeovers and parking-lot takeovers, with a $1,000 fine for a first offense, $2,000 for each after that, and impoundment for up to six months. A 2023 amendment extended it to drivers who block intersections with their cars, and the council said impoundment “has proven to be a greater deterrent of the activity” than fines. The city’s announcement doesn’t say what legal step moved the Charger from impound to forfeiture.
Kentucky lawmakers have twice tried to write destruction into state law. A 2025 bill died in the Senate after some members called the crushing provision “a little bit extreme,” according to WHAS11. In 2026, House Bill 425 raised the first-offense fine for unpermitted street racing from $60–$200 to $1,000 and required at least six months of impoundment. The House version forfeited the car on a second offense, to be “destroyed or sold at public auction.” The Senate’s substitute pushed forfeiture to a third offense but kept the crusher in.
Both chambers passed it, 75-19 in the House on March 16 and 35-3 in the Senate on April 14. On April 15, the last day of the session, the House recommitted it to its Appropriations and Revenue Committee, and it died with the session. Tennessee, by contrast, answered Memphis takeovers with a drag racing felony.
Stockton and Compton
Two California cities are going after the pavement instead of the cars. Stockton installed barriers that break up the open center of the intersection at Otto and Estate drives in North Stockton, leaving the stop signs in place. Four days later, CBS Sacramento cameras recorded a driver spinning around them. “You’re kidding me. They’re going around it?!” Councilmember Michele Padilla said when shown the footage.
Padilla said drivers who damage the barriers could be billed for repairs, and that repeat reports against a registered owner can escalate from a warning to police contact and towing. She wants more of the barriers, including near Trinity Parkway. The station’s report gives no cost.
Compton chose rubber medians. CBS Los Angeles listed three hotspot intersections (Alondra Boulevard and Central Avenue, Long Beach and Compton boulevards, Wilmington Avenue and Stockwell Street) and said about 30 more were planned. City engineer Jack Gong said the medians should last at least 10 years. The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department reported a 45% drop in street takeovers in the first half of 2026 compared with the same period a year earlier, following installations in Compton and nearby unincorporated areas. That figure covers more ground than Compton’s medians, so it doesn’t isolate their effect.
The counts don’t line up across reports. NBC Los Angeles put the medians at nearly two dozen intersections, with about 23 more planned in 2026. Neither station reported a price.
Saturday’s show
Both Louisville TV stations put the crush at Saturday’s 6:30 p.m. show. The arena’s own event page lists the Saturday evening performance at 7:30 p.m., so if you’re going for the Charger, check the time on your ticket. The arena’s lineup already promises a fire-breathing robot dinosaur that crushes a car; on Oct. 17, Rhinomite gets one with a police file.
Is crushing a seized car in front of an arena crowd a deterrent, or would Louisville get more from putting Compton-style rubber in its own intersections?
Sources: WHAS11 (Oct. 12, 2026; 2023); WDRB/WAVE (Oct. 12, 2026; Sept. 17, 2025); Kentucky General Assembly record and bill text for HB 425 (2026 Regular Session); KFC Yum! Center event listing; CBS Sacramento (Oct. 5, 2026); CBS Los Angeles (Sept. 3, 2026); NBC Los Angeles (Sept. 28, 2026).
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