While much of Seattle tries to sleep, the Hellcat supercar goes on the prowl, the screams of its engine and explosive backfires of its exhaust pipes echoing off the downtown towers.
The windows are slamming. The animals jump frantically. Even people accustomed to the hustle and bustle of city life wake up with a start, fearful and then angry.
Complaints have been pouring in for months from city leaders and police, who responded with warnings, citations, criminal charges and legal action, urging the renegade driver to take his modified Dodge Charger SRT Hellcat from the city streets to a racetrack. Instead, the “Belltown Hellcat,” with its distinctive tiger-striped wrap, remained on the move.
For hundreds of thousands of people with Instagram accounts, the driver is a familiar figure: @srt.miles, otherwise known as Miles Hudson, a 20-year-old resident of one of the Belltown neighborhood’s most expensive apartments . Among all the annoyed residents who view him with growing disdain – “Entire neighborhoods are angry and sleep deprived,” one resident wrote to his local councilor – many others follow his escapades on social media, celebrating a life without embarrassment or regret. .
When Mr. Hudson posted a video (350,441 likes) showing his speedometer topping 100 miles per hour while out downtown for boba tea, one follower asked: “What what does it feel like to live my dream? When he posted a video (698,858 likes) showing the Hellcat’s loud rattles, another responded: “You really make the city so fun at night.” »
In a self-reflective post, Mr. Hudson captured a video (69,742 likes) of himself watching a television news segment that discussed the city’s concerns about his conduct, and frantically rushed in the apartment, pretending to be afraid the police were on him. “I love your content so when they arrest you I’m coming for you,” one follower replied.
One recent night, when a police officer stopped Mr. Hudson, he took out his phone to show the officer his Instagram account and struggled to explain that he was professionally incapable of changing his late-night driving habits .
“No disrespect, but I feel like I’m doing my thing,” he told the officer, according to the body camera footage. “I made a career out of it and the car paid for itself. 650,000 subscribers.
For some residents, the city’s failure to stop Mr. Hudson’s exploits is just another example of its failure to end the homelessness, street crime and occasional mayhem plaguing the city. downtown since the pandemic. And it all raised a mysterious question about the incentives of modern life: What happens when fame and infamy can be equally lucrative?
The Belltown neighborhood has transformed in recent decades from a dirty, semi-industrial arts district to a kind of ideal of affluent urban living, with bike-friendly streets, trendy cafes and high-rises. apartments so desirable that a penthouse there became the setting for the steamy “Fifty Shades of Grey” book series. This month, the roof of one of these luxury towers displayed a McLaren sports car worth $1.7 million to attract a potential buyer. Other rooftops feature terraces with lounge chairs and fire pits, offering views of the Space Needle in one direction and waterfront sunsets in the other.
M. Hudson’s Belltown apartment features panoramic views, decorated inside with neon lights and vibrant artwork. In his online posts, he can be seen playing video games and consuming iced pumpkin cream chai tea.
He debuted the Hellcat seven months ago on Instagram, showing off its engine’s power and interior dome lights that looked like a night sky. He casually took viewers on an outing to Starbucks.
It didn’t take long, however, for another social media story to emerge, one of ongoing chaos, told by Mr. Hudson in breathless expletives as he drove around the city. If he’s not in his car, speeding through the streets, he’s in the apartment, late at night, trying his hand at cooking.
In one video (669,757 likes), he got up from the sofa to ride a hoverboard to his kitchen to cook burgers, but the pan quickly caught fire and Mr Hudson ran on his hoverboard to try to contain it. He had a fire extinguisher handy in a later video when he tried to fry Twinkies. There was no fire this time, but the Twinkies were charred. “I don’t know how to cook,” he shouted.
Her refrigerator, shown in another video (886,343 likes), seemed empty of some condiments and lunch dishes.
During Seattle’s white winter, he posted about modifications to his car. In a video with nearly 700,000 likes, he was seen in the street at 2 a.m., driving off. “It sounds like a shotgun,” he said, asking his supporters if it was too loud.
“Never too loud, I mean not loud enough,” someone replied.
For neighbors, the vehicle was very noisy and complaints poured in to municipal authorities. One woman wrote that she was living with PTSD and woke up scared because the vehicle backfiring sounded like gunshots outside her apartment building. “This is the first time in 13 years that I have seriously considered leaving downtown,” she wrote. Another wrote after 6 a.m. saying the tiger-striped Hellcat had been driving the streets for two hours. “What will it take for this to end?” » the man wrote.
Chris Allen, who lives downtown, said the backfires sound like explosions shaking the windows of his 17th-floor apartment. Although he regularly used a white noise machine to drown out the noise of motorcycles and emergency vehicles, the machine was no match for the Hellcat, Mr. Allen said, adding that he called in Instagram owner Meta to take down Mr. Hudson’s account.
“He’s clearly committing crimes,” he said. “He documents it on Instagram. It’s frustrating that Instagram hasn’t removed this.
But eventually, the wheels of bureaucracy began to turn. Police arrested Mr. Hudson once in January, giving him one warning, and then again in February, giving him another warning.
Early one evening in early March, the police arrested Mr. Hudson again. This time, it was cited for having a modified exhaust system that amplified the noise. Mr. Hudson soon paid the $155 fine.
And the complaints kept coming. A few weeks after the quote, Mr. Hudson posted a video (79,267 likes), in which he starts the car remotely from his apartment balcony. Below, on the street, the vehicle roared, exhaust fumes exploding from the tailpipes. Mr. Hudson then toured the Seattle skyline.
“I’m the Arkham Knight,” he said, referring to the Batman villain. “I’m actually the Arkham Knight. In fact, my city hates me.
For police, the Instagram videos were a criminal breadcrumb trail through the city, complete with narration, timestamps and images of his speedometer.
In late March, the city charged Mr. Hudson with two counts of reckless driving for “operating a motor vehicle with willful or willful disregard for the safety of persons and/or property.” A few days later, during another traffic stop, an officer pulled out a decibel meter, recording the Hellcat at 84 decibels even at idle, the equivalent of a diesel train.
Mr. Hudson declined to speak to The New York Times without payment, but he told a Seattle Times reporter in March that the city needed to focus its attention on other issues. “There are much bigger problems than a black man with a nice car making noise every once in a while,” he said.
At that point, another municipal department intervened. The Department of Building and Inspections sent out a notice saying it had “investigated and found one or more violations of the Seattle Noise Control Code.” Mr. Hudson was ordered to modify the vehicle and not “operate any motor vehicle causing noise in violation of Seattle Municipal Code.” The notice came with a potential fine of $1,300 per day.
To Seattle’s newly elected city leaders, many of whom had participated in law-and-order campaigns, Mr. Hudson became an example to follow. Bob Kettle, who represents Belltown on the city council, said something needs to be done about what he described as the city’s “permissive environment.”
“It is shocking that someone can make money by disturbing or affecting thousands of people every night,” he said in an interview.
Mr. Hudson responded with a new tactic. In response to city orders not to drive his car, he posted a new video (528,359 likes) in which he is seen sitting in the passenger seat of the Hellcat, with a woman behind the wheel. She chased them away, the car roaring again.
Now the city is trying a new strategy: The city attorney filed a civil complaint this month, seeking a court order to force Mr. Hudson to modify his vehicle and fines that could total tens of thousands of dollars.
A response came, from another authority figure: Mr. Hudson’s mother, Rebecca Hudson. In an email to city officials, she said the Hellcat was off the streets and in the store.
“This letter is simply to inform and respond to you that I work there and he no longer drives the car nor has it in his possession,” she wrote.
For the past few weeks, Mr. Hudson’s Instagram account (which now has 758,159 followers) has remained silent. Some were beginning to hope that the saga was coming to an end.
Then, late one night last week, residents reported hearing the Hellcat again. Someone captured video of the tiger-striped vehicle. It was, they said, still just as noisy.
Mr. Hudson posted the clip on Instagram: “Villain arc,” he wrote.