Newsom Conducts High-Profile Drive-By Shooting in Compton to Prove He’s ‘Just Like Them’
COMPTON, CA – In what aides are calling “a decisive step toward national healing,” California Governor Gavin Newsom personally piloted a rented 2024 Dodge Charger through several Compton neighborhoods late Tuesday afternoon, discharging multiple rounds from a legally purchased Glock 19 while shouting phrases he believed would demonstrate irrefutable racial solidarity.
Witnesses described the governor leaning out the driver-side window, one hand on the wheel, the other firing in controlled three-round bursts at loosely specified “symbols of systemic injustice,” which in practice appeared to include a shuttered check-cashing business, a mural of Nipsey Hussle, and at least one very confused taco truck.
“I’m just like you!” Newsom yelled through a bullhorn mounted awkwardly to the roof. “I’m here as a man who has read Ta-Nehisi Coates exactly twice and once stayed at the Magic Johnson Airbnb in Baldwin Hills!”
The governor’s security detail trailed several blocks behind in three black Suburbans, lights off, apparently under strict instructions not to intervene unless the vehicle’s Bluetooth disconnected from the curated “Compton Classics” Spotify playlist. Tracks reportedly included “Straight Outta Compton,” “Dopeman,” and — in a moment aides later described as “a bold creative choice” — the clean radio edit of “Gin and Juice.”
Local residents offered mixed reviews.
“He kept yelling ‘I see y’all!’ every time he passed a group on the corner,” said DeShawn Miller, 31, who filmed part of the incident on his phone. “Bro, we see you too. That’s why everybody was ducking.”
Another witness, who gave her name only as “Tasha from Rosecrans,” said the governor paused briefly at a red light to deliver what he called “an unscripted moment of allyship.”
“He looked me dead in the eye and said, ‘Reparations start with courage,’ then floored it through the intersection while indiscriminately shooting everything,” Tasha recounted. “Courage is one word for it.”
In a hastily arranged 1:47 a.m. press conference streamed from the parking lot of a closed In-N-Out, Newsom — still wearing the same Lakers jersey now perforated with gunshot residue — defended the action as “the most literal demonstration of showing up that any elected official has ever attempted.”
“Look, critics will say this was performative,” he told the three remaining reporters and one very lost DoorDash driver. “I say: performance is the only currency marginalized communities have ever been paid in. I’m just balancing the books.”
When asked whether the drive-by had, in fact, reduced perceptions of racial insensitivity surrounding his leadership, the governor pointed to a fresh bullet hole in the Charger’s rear quarter panel.
“Can you help me out? I can’t read,” he said. “What does that say?”
LAPD officials confirmed they are “reviewing footage” but noted that the governor was traveling with a valid CCW permit, several layers of qualified immunity, and “an almost unreadable level of earnestness,” all of which complicated immediate arrest prospects.
At press time, Newsom was scheduled to appear on The View Thursday morning to discuss “what Compton taught me about myself,” followed by a planned listening tour through South Central in a newly bulletproofed Rivian, during which he intends to distribute free copies of White Fragility and explain why the car’s regenerative braking “feels like restorative justice.”
The Charger has since been listed on eBay as “California Historical Artifact – Low Miles, High Drama, Comes With Story.” Bidding starts at $1.2 million.
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