Bridgeville man surrenders in Fort Pitt Bridge 'street takeover' stunt
A Bridgeville man surrendered to Allegheny County sheriff’s deputies at a Downtown courthouse around 8 a.m. Friday, weeks after police charged him for his role in a July “street takeover” stunt on the Fort Pitt Bridge.
Jason Stotlemyer, 31, was the first person charged in connection with the July 21 driving stunt, which ended when Stotlemyer crashed his Jeep Grand Cherokee into a state police cruiser and nearly hit a state police trooper as he sped away, authorities said.
State police had charged Stotlemyer on July 24 with aggravated assault, aggravated assault with a vehicle, fleeing or attempting to elude police, simple assault and causing an accident involving damage to an occupied vehicle.
He was processed Friday into Allegheny County Jail and is awaiting arraignment, Sheriff Kevin M. Kraus said. Stotlemyer’s attorney was not listed in court records Friday.
Stotlemyer has been charged with 24 traffic citations since 2018, court records show.
A social media influencer was the second person arrested in the bridge street takeover..
On July 24, state police charged Graham Carvins Liberal, 24, of Sunrise, Fla., with rioting, recklessly endangering another person, disorderly conduct and being a pedestrian walking on a highway, court records show.
State police said they received multiple reports early on July 21 that up to 50 cars had stopped traffic on the Fort Pitt Bridge, which takes the Parkway East over the Monongahela River in Downtown Pittsburgh. The vehicles were doing burnouts — when a car stays stationary but spins its wheels, with the friction creating smoke — and drag-racing.
State police said Liberal was visiting the Pittsburgh area last weekend and staged the takeover on the Pittsburgh bridge to drum up views of his social media pages.
Police became aware of street takeovers such as this a few years ago, they said. The incidents began in spring 2021 and use several social media car groups to organize, recruit, and plan their events.
Liberal had previously created a stir with a similar incident in Nevada. He was arrested there in July 2022 for attempting to stage a takeover on the Las Vegas Strip, media outlets reported.
Liberal appears to post videos to YouTube as “Mr.Gotdamnit” and has nearly 330,000 subscribers on the video platform.
Justin Vellucci is a TribLive reporter covering crime and public safety in Pittsburgh and Allegheny County. A longtime freelance journalist and former reporter for the Asbury Park (N.J.) Press, he worked as a general assignment reporter at the Trib from 2006 to 2009 and returned in 2022. He can be reached at jvellucci@triblive.com.
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