Off-Duty NYC Cops Watched, Participated In Assault Of SUV Driver By Enraged Bikers
from the a-Big-Apple-full-of-'bad-apples' dept
What started out as a just another example of human-on-human brutality has now gotten even uglier. Alexian Lien, a NYC resident who was out driving with his wife and child, found himself surrounded by a large group of bikers who had pretty much taken over the West Side Highway.
In a video captured by one of the bikers, you can see Lien tap a rider with his SUV when one cuts him off by swerving into his lane suddenly. The next scene would be frightening enough, even without what follows. Lien is surrounded by angry bikers, enough that his SUV disappears from view. As bikers begin to dismount to confront him, Lien takes off, using his vehicle as a battering ram to clear a path through the angry crowd. One biker, Edwin Mieses, is run over. A long pursuit follows, culminating in an attack on Lien on a side street.
Although the video doesn't show it, other video, photographs and eyewitness accounts indicate the group of bikers smashed Lien's windows, banged on the vehicle, slashed tires and beat Lien himself while his wife and child looked on.
Everything about the situation is regrettable and horrific, from Lien's panicked hit-and-run to the street justice meted out by a handful of vengeful bikers.
But it gets worse.
As the investigation commenced and arrests were made, an undercover officer of the NYPD came forward to state that he had been present during this incident.
An off-duty undercover NYPD cop was among the pack of bikers who chased a family up the West Side Highway — and he stood by as the dad was hauled from his car and beaten, sources told The Post.In a reversal of the recent situation where the public stood by as a Philly transit cop was assaulted by one person, this undercover cop stood by while a citizen was beaten by several. Why didn't this cop spring into action -- or at least call 911?
The unidentified officer waited three days to come forward Wednesday night. He has been placed on modified duty and turned in his gun and badge on Friday, the sources said.
“It does not appear that he got involved at the scene,” one law-enforcement source said of the undercover, who has hired a lawyer. “He didn’t want to blow his cover...”This might have meant something if the cop was investigating his fellow riders. But he wasn't. In fact, he was off-duty at the time, investigating nothing at all. But still, he failed to do anything to prevent the attack or even report the attack, despite all of his inside connections.
It's bad. It gets worse. There was another undercover cop present as well.
The off-duty officer was one of two detectives riding Sunday with the two-wheeled thugs who yanked Alexian Lien from his Range Rover and inflicted a beatdown near W. 178th St. in front of the driver’s family, a source told the Daily News.The downward spiral continues.
According to New York Police Department sources, whether either of the two new officers to step forward witnessed Sunday's incidents remains unclear, Miller reported Saturday afternoon. All three officers who have said that they took part in the motorcycle ride were off-duty.Now we have three officers, none of whom made even the slightest move to protect Lien, head off the crowd or call for assistance. The excuse that calling the NYPD would have "blown their cover" simply doesn't fly. This happened in broad daylight on heavily-traveled roads. The arrival of police would have seemed inevitable, rather than the act of a rat within their midst.
Unbelievably, we still haven't plumbed the depths that a member of NYC's Finest would explore in order to preserve his cover or uphold the First Rule of Policing or whatever will be used in court to justify this officer's actions.
An off-duty undercover cop who claimed he took no active role as fellow bikers pulled a Manhattan dad from his SUV and beat him to a pulp actually furiously slapped the car’s back window so hard that it shattered at the height of the bloody road-rage attack, sources told The Post.Here's more:
The cop, a seven-year veteran, had told investigators he didn’t help the injured man because he rode up to the scene as the beating was nearly over, sources said.
Wojciech Braszczok, 32, was publicly identified by his bosses — to whom he allegedly lied when he claimed he had nothing to do with the heinous Sept. 29 attack. Video evidence showed he shattered the window with his gloved hand.On the plus side, even the Thin Blue Line doesn't want much to do with Braszczok:
Braszczok surrendered with his lawyer at Central Booking and was charged with rioting and criminal mischief — and he could face up to seven years in prison, sources said.
The cop also said he feared for his life if he blew his cover in any way — but law-enforcement sources scoffed at the claim. He works undercover narcotics, but is on assignment with the NYPD’s Intelligence Division and wasn’t on the clock at the time.Looking at this whole fiasco, is it any wonder that people aren't in a hurry to rush to the aid of law enforcement? With the roles reversed, the reaction is exactly the same -- and in Brasczok's case, actively worse. The police don't have any legal duty to assist people in harm's way. Their purpose is much more specialized. As human beings, their duty to their fellow man extends only as far as anyone else's. This isn't meant to excuse the lack of action on the part of the undercover officers (and there's no excusing Braszczok), but rather to point out how ridiculous it is for law enforcement to expect the public to make more of an effort than trained cops, with backup on tap, would in the same situation.
“He totally lied when he said he did nothing because he didn’t want to blow his cover,’’ a law-enforcement source seethed.
There are heroes and villains in any police force and in any public setting. But when those the public assumes will fill the protective role do nothing, or worse, become a part of the mob, it colors the entire force as untrustworthy and dangerous.
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Filed Under: beatings, police, undercover
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Care to explain that one, Tim? I thought "To Protect and Serve" was stamped on all the badges of all cops in the US, or is that just an urban myth? Seems to me that if a cop comes across a scene where a member of the public is in danger, whether from a collapsing building or at the hands of an assailant, he is duty-bound, off the clock or not, to extend some sort of aid.
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Government, since the beginning of time, does only 1 thing! Use situations great or small to grant themselves more power while resting their boots even heavier upon the necks of the citizenry. It is our lack of care that allows this to proceed.
Proof: History
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That being said, while there's a lot of explanations for why this cop didn't help (mob mentality, genuine fear for his life, bystander effect), it's still disgusting that he didn't at least call for backup.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/28/politics/28scotus.html?_r=0
WASHINGTON, June 27 - The Supreme Court ruled on Monday that the police did not have a constitutional duty to protect a person from harm, even a woman who had obtained a court-issued protective order against a violent husband making an arrest mandatory for a violation.
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And the police chief from the article a few days back wondered why no one cared enough to help when one of his officers was getting attacked... it's called returning the favor you moron, if the police don't care when the public is in danger, then the public won't care when the police find themselves in danger.
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Re: Court Ruling on Police duty
no duty to protect = superfluous police force.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/28/politics/28scotus.html?_r=0
Yeah, its messed up. But it gives these clowns an out.
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That's a term I haven't heard before. What, is there a limit to how many administrative leaves they can give out?
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Stories like this are exactly why people these days want as little to do with the police as possible, and trust them not at all, in far too many cases they are either no better than the criminals they are supposed to be dealing with, or in a case like this they are the criminals.
If there is one redeeming fact to this story, it's that at least in this case the other police don't seem to be backing/protecting at least one of the guilty officers.
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Though frankly, if you're a serving police officer and you suspect your riding buddies might fly off the handle like this and try to kick some poor bastard's head in, you really should think about finding another motorcycle club.
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'might've been hazardous to one's health' also doesn't fly, all they would have had to do is dial 911 with the phone at their side, not say a word, and just let the audio tell the operator what was going on, nothing overt or obvious about it.
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Blowing their cover
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video taken down
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Self defense
For all the guy knew, the bikers were ready to lynch him. If you come at me with a knife, I am going to shoot you. You try to remove me from my car by force, I am going to run you over. Legitimate self defense!
Bikers get away with too much shit. Thuggish behavior should not be tolerated.
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Sequence of events
Cruz, a part of this group, cuts Lien off and brake-checks him, constituting reckless driving. The current theory is that Cruz wanted to obstruct traffic so his buddies could perform stunts on the open highway. The guy with the helmet cam had it on so he could record the stunts.
Lien, surrounded by bikers on every side, including behind him, has no choice but to bump Cruz.
Lien comes to a stop, like one should after a collsion.
The bikers surround Lien's SUV, constituting unlawful imprisonment. Mieses, the one who got run over, parked his bike in front of Lien's SUV. At this point, police reports indicate that the bikers were hitting Lien's SUV, and that his front right tire had been slashed.
Fearing for his life, Lien takes off, running over Mieses in the process. A pursuit ensues.
After Lien comes to a second stop, one of the bikers tries to open his door. Lien takes off again.
Lien gets caught in traffic. The bikers smash out his window, drag him out of the car, and beat him up six-on-one (cowards]. The helmet cam conveniently "runs out of power" once the assault starts.
The bikers then try to pull the wife and infant out of the car. An individual who luckily appears immune to the Bystander Effect, one Mr. Consuegra, comes to the rescue, telling the bikers "that's enough".
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The driver of this SUV acted appropriately to protect his family over what I estimate to be at least 50 bikers acting to intimidate the driver of that SUV.
ON the other hand, these bikers were stupid in the first place. You can bet that if the NYPD end up identifying any of those bikers, that they'll most likely be facing assault and battery as well as possibly attempted murder. There is nothing to excuse the lawlessness that happened on the part of the bikers nor the disregard that these off-duty police officers showed when they were in witness to what;s going on.
Please. "Not on duty"? Bullshit. POlice officers are always on duty, even when they're not "on the clock". if a police officer or someone in law enforcement sees a crime being committed, they have a duty to interfere with whoever is committing that crime.
Personally, the bikers already know that the driver is going to run them over. For me? I would have kept driving down main streets until I found a patrol car or a police station.
Any bikers continue to get in my way, I would run them over, acting in protection of my family.
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No, they don't. The police are not responsible for the safety of any particular citizen, even when protection has been explicitly offered. I.e. those restraining orders women get against stalkers are worthless; the police don't have to enforce them and probably won't.
The legal issues start here with the creation of what's called the Warren Rule: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warren_v._District_of_Columbia
...and go on through some other rulings, but the long and short of it is that the police are not responsible for your safety.
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He couldn't; his tires had been slashed.
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The police seem to be arresting more people every day. You can find mugshots on the Internet for five of them, but the undercover gets to hide his face during his perp walk. The various charges against the bikers have not included attempted murder, but assault and gang assault is a common one; I found out that gang assault is a special version of assault that is done in concert with two other people.
Sadly enough, Wojciech Braszczok (the alleged undercover cop) (...I have no idea how to pronounce that...) did have reason to not invoke his cop powers. Cops have actually been fired for blowing their cover even for a good reason. But he crossed the line when he hit the car.
I think using a vehicle as a weapon is only acceptable in self defense. The fact that Mr. Lien has not been charged with anything speaks volumes.
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Tell me if I was walking down the street and you and a bunch of your male relatives came up from behind me and surrounded me as you passed (i walk pretty slow!), would it be ok if I assumed you (Mr. Tanaka & associates) were a Yakuza gang and reacted to protect myself by pulling out my (CCW) 9mm semi-auto and gunning you all down ? Would that be ok ?
Lucky for you. in my mind feeling intimidated is not justification for assault...
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Yes, you would be completely justified in your self-defense.
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draw the lines for me ... according to some commenters on this thread I'm a biased moron ... so what event before he ran over someone correlates with the pushing, shoving him to the ground and kicking him, in your analogy ?
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I don't know why you're attempting to blame the victim and defend these bike thugs.
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My point here is that the banker is just as much in the wrong and yet hasn't been charged with ANYTHING ... because "bikers" .
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Conversely nothing the bikers actually did at the initial accident justified him running someone over and neither did his fear.
As for the "forced accident... wtf? Are you suggesting they ambushed him? deliberately caused the accident as an excuse to what ? beat up some yuppie in an SUV ?
Assault on property != assault on person
Slashed tire?
Not sure i buy the slashed tire at the initial accident site report; Have you ever driven on a flat front tire ? If one of the front tires was slashed there would've been erratic driving, chunks of rubber on the road, sparks, gouges in the asphalt none of which are evident in the video. just because it's on a police report doesn't make it true.
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If they're dodging in and out of traffic, stopping in front of a vehicle on a street, they're making a hazardous and intimidating situation. Did you not see why the car stopped 30 seconds into the video? That they surrounded and gang pressed him into it taking advantage of the fact that he DIDN'T want to run any of them over?
Holy shit you're a imbecile.
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I'm curious ...
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Regardless of what happened after this, Mr. Liens' action was not justified by the circumstances, he should be charged at the very least with fleeing the scene of an accident, more likely hit and run, and if there was any justice, aggravated assault.
Justifying it by saying that he was surrounded by a "gang of bikers" is like justifying gunning down an unarmed African American teenager because you were surrounded by a gang of African American teenagers.
Now don't get me wrong ... while i understand the motivation s of the men that assaulted Mr. Lien (and even empathize to a certain extent) his actions by no means justify their actions ... but six+ bikers are being charged and 0 bankers!! That's "justice" in America today ?
God help us!!
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You seem to have witnessed a different video than I did. The motorcycle, weighing a fraction of the amount the SUV weighs, cut off the SUV and then stopped short. I don't know about you, but I have a basic understanding of physics and there's no way that SUV could have stopped before hitting the bike. It' like those assholes in a car that cut into the ACD (assured clear distance) of an 18-wheeler and then get bent when the truck almost hits them because they hit their brakes.
These guys were all over the road and the SUV had no room to safely operate. Don't blame the SUV driver for the idiocy of someone who clearly had no respect for the rules of the road, not to mention a lack of respect for his own safety.
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I'm curious ...
I said Mr. Lien hit the motorcycle, which he did. I never once implied or stated that it was Mr Lien fault. His fault comes after the initial accident (caused by the dick on the bike!) when he saw the other guys approaching, panicked & deliberately ran over one of them.
The reasonable response in his position would have been to throw the truck in park and jump out to see if the guy was injured, call the police and report the accident. If he's feeling really intimidated, then close the windows, lock the doors and call the police, don't flee the scene, running over people in the process.
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LOL. Yeah, right! Jump out of your car while a large group of angry thugs approaches you and your family. A wise and prudent move. Nothing could go wrong with that!
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Whew. Seems he'll be ok (physically).
I can't even imagine the panic in that car.
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You should look this information up before commenting. Not only were these officers present during this incident but they failed to intervene when they saw a deadly assault being committed nor did they both to call 911 or radio for assistance.
This coming after the recent New York incident where a public transit police chief criticized New Yorkers for not getting involved when one of his officers was being assaulted ... this is an embarrassment for the New York Police Department to find that three of their own officers were present during this horrific assault and to find that these officers didn't do a single thing to put a halt to this incident.
As undercover cops, you can also bet they also carry their handgun on them as well, along with their badge and ID.
It's nice to know that our taxdollars not only pay for their salaries but that we also pay them to help assault SUV drivers.
All I can say is WOW!
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No, they don't. I did look it up; so did other people in the discussion. The police are under no *legal* obligation to protect any specific individual person. The department or municipality may throw an officer who fails to respond under a bus if they feel the bad publicity isn't worth it but when push comes to shove there is no legal recourse.
Sadly, it has to be this way, or the police would never be able to function. They'd be barraged by nuisance lawsuits.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7dqIPRYTWWA
The original biker is the biker that has been arrested and charged with the initial confrontation and they are also looking for the biker who smashed the side window of the SUV.
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All of the police officers involved thru inaction should be terminated immediately. All of the bikers who struck Lein, his vehicle or helped stop his vehicle should face criminal charges and have to pay for his medical and vehicle bills as well as compensation for stress, time off work, etc. Lein should sue the police department as well.
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He didn't just "drive away" ... he was involved in a traffic accident (rear-ended a motorcycle - all things considered possibly not his fault) then overreacted to the natural response of the other members of the group by DRIVING OVER one of the guys that stopped to help his friend (that was hit), precipitating a violent response by some of the rest of the group.
Based on what he KNEW at the time that he PERMANENTLY CRIPPLED a dude, he was as far out of line as the guys that beat him up (possibly more so) ... and consider, Lien was treated for minor injuries and released ... the guy he RAN OVER who did NOTHING WRONG is in critical condition and will likely never walk again.
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No. He drove over that person once it became clear he was about to be forced out of his car by an angry mob of criminals. It's a clear cut case of self defense.
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Moving violations in traffic is hardly criminal (or everyone who drives is a criminal!) and riding a motorcycle is not a crime either
And what point in the video (time index please!!) did it become "clear" he was going to be forced out of his vehicle?
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I don't know about being criminals, but they're clearly stupid. Surrounding the SUV was just asking for trouble and the guy who pulled in front of it and then hit the brakes was the king of the idiots.
And what point in the video (time index please!!) did it become "clear" he was going to be forced out of his vehicle?
At what point in the video does it show that the bikers peacefully walked over to the SUV and Lien panicked?
Let me ask you this: If the bikers did attack the SUV after the initial encounter, making Lien fear for his life and the life of his family, would you really expect them to admit it?
He says they attacked the SUV. Why do you believe the word of bikers who were acting like they owned the road rather than a family man who was the victim of a violent assault?
If these bikers were such fine, upstanding guys, why didn't they let the police handle it? They could have gotten his license plate number, then followed at a safe distance until the cops pulled him over?
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Bikers are fine. Bikers acting like they did in this video, in other videos of this same gang are not. That you can't tell the difference shows your ignorance.
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That you believe that this is violent behavior shows your ignorance
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Not only should these off duty cops be terminated immediately but all three of them should face criminal charges for their participation in this event as well as not coming to the assistance of a defenseless driver.
The video I posted above directly points to the fact that the bikers were the cause of the first initial contact and then their decided to harass and attack the SUV driver because the SUV driver feared for the safety of his family.
The SUV driver was entirely justified for what he did and if that injured biker's family is upset over what happened then he should have never gotten involved.
Seriously? The injured biker posed no threat? I don't believe that at all. But even if that were true, there is no way in hell that the driver in the SUV was supposed to know that. In his state of mind, every one of those bikers represented a threat.
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These bikers were impeding traffic, harassing other motorists, simply because they wanted to act foolish. The whole excuse that the bikers were trying to slow down traffic so that other bikers could safely navigate around the SUV is complete BS.
Recent news coming out is that four bikers have been arrested. And, guess what? All four of the arrested bikers are black people, African Americans. Now, why doesn't this surprise me.
Another media website posted a news video clip where the bikers said they were trying to slow down traffic so that other bikers could pass? Bullshit. These bikers were deliberately harassing other drivers and that they were, more than likely, intending to do some stunt moves. When you have THAT many bikers in a single group, you're just inviting trouble.
AND, these three idiot undercover cops should have found some way to radio for backup patrol cars before this whole incident barreled out of control.
These three undercover cops FAILED miserably because they had a duty, even though they were undercover, to diffuse the situation or to call other cops in for assistance. if they blow their cover, or their identities, SO WHAT? Their undercover status is more important than preventing an unarmed citizen from getting beaten half to death?
THERE IS NO EXCUSE THAT ANY OF THESE OFF DUTY COPS CAN USE TO JUSTIFY THEIR ACTIONS.
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Can't you comment without throwing around personal insults ? Is that the best argument you have?
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Undercover cop charged with felonies
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Four times.
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Just play along here for a moment. If they really did slash his tire (the front right tire - the wife would have seen the whole thing go down - you can see pictures that show the front right tire was the one that got spiked) - and they really were pounding on his SUV - and they really did knock his mirror off - and he really was surrounded - on a highway, where people shouldn't be standing anyway...
If that is true - and there is nothing to show that it isn't true, and the police reports say that it is true, and at least one police officer has been arrested and Lien has not been arrested...
Then would you agree that Lien rightfully decided that their life was in danger?
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cops
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Terrible
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