I have got a lot of apologising to do...
GARAGE BOSS WHO HELPED ORGANISE CHAOTIC CAR MEET PLEADS FOR FORGIVENESS
A GARAGE owner who helped organise a car meet which attracted thousands of people says he has got ‘a lot of apologising to do.’
Jordan Keelan, who owns JDX Autoworx in Denton, claims he had arranged a ‘small’ event at Tameside Business Park on Sunday.
A poster advertising the car meet – dubbed ‘DMO Shutdown’ – was posted on social media by Birmingham-based club DJ DMO Deejay 24 hours earlier. A large number of cars are believed to have met up with the DJ in Telford, before a convoy to JDX Autoworx.
The event was swarming with people after the DJ posted pictures on his Instagram page, which has more than 150,000 followers.
Video footage from the event shows large groups of people lining the streets, with drivers revving their engines and speeding along residential roads.
Mass gatherings are still banned under the government’s coronavirus lockdown measures.
It is not believed anybody was injured during the event, despite a crash between two-high performance vehicles on Windmill Lane. No arrests have been made, but senior police officers say an investigation has been launched.
At least one vehicle was seized and a number of people were reported for a road traffic offence.
Supt Jane Higham, of GMP Tameside district, said the force had received no warning of the event.
She said: “I now know this was advertised on social media, but our scanner didn’t pick it up.
“The first we knew about it was just after 2pm when a member of the
Everyone has been pretty horrible and I understand the anger, but it wasn’t meant to go down like that Jordan Keelan
public called us. By the time police arrived quite a large number of vehicles had already gathered.”
The event caused major disruption on the M60 and M67, with police having to close a number of surrounding roads in an attempt to control the gathering. Supt Higham said the gathering started in the Telford area, but claims her team were not contacted by West Mercia Police until later in the afternoon.
She said: “The whole of the operation was to keep people safe. By the early evening the vast majority of cars had dispersed from the area.” Mr Keelan, whose garage specialises in Japanese performance vehicles, claims what was meant to be a small gathering quickly got out of hand.
He said: “There was a well known DJ coming up and we had planned to have a small meet of less than 100 cars on the industrial estate. Thousands of people ended up turning up and I was having palpations the whole afternoon. I had absolutely no control over the public. It didn’t really help that DMO put it all over his social media, I don’t think. I didn’t expect people to even come to be honest.”
In a post on Instagram, DMO Deejay wrote: “If I say... I do #shutdown. Thanks to all the 10,000 people bear enough for coming and showing support.” A photo showed the DJ speaking outside the Autoworx