Police have made an arrest in the extraordinary case of a gang of bikers who terrorized a family of Alexian Lien, 33, in New York City. One of the bikers filmed the entire chase and attack and then posted it on YouTube. He may have succeeded in incriminating his colleagues, including Christopher Cruz, 28. Cruz was charged with reckless endangerment, menacing, reckless driving and acting in a manner injurious to a child less than 17. (Update: A second suspect — Allen Edwards, 42, of Queens, charged with reckless endangerment, criminal mischief and menacing. He is believed to be the man seen on video below striking the Range Rover windows with his fists.).
One jacket has been identified as belonging to a New Rochelle motorcycle club. Moreover the videographer is identified but has not responded to inquiries. The bikers were engaged in a rally that they call “Hollywood Stuntz” in which they engage in obnoxious road stunts and generally harass drivers. The police arrested 15 people, confiscated 55 motorcycles and issued 68 summonses for the stunts starting in Times Square unconnected to the Lien attack.
The video shows Lien and his wife and child being stopped by the group. The bikers reportedly started denting the SUV with their helmets and may have slashed its tires. Lien is shown trying to escape by running over motorcycles and hitting at least one person. That person Edwin Mieses may be left a paraplegic after surgery for injuries to his heart, lungs and ribs.
The video shows the bikers pursuing the fleeing SUV and making an attempt to enter it when stopped in traffic. Ultimately, bikers catch the SUV a third time and shatter the windows and attack Lien in front of his wife and daughter. Lien was pulled out of his car and slashed and beaten by the bikers.
A person attacking in self-defense is afforded some leeway in flight. In torts, Lien would not have been able to use the vehicle to hit Mieses or others to protect the vehicle from property damage. You are not allowed to use force calculated to cause serious bodily injury or death in defense of property. However, the attack on the vehicle can be viewed as a threat to the family and thus the broader privilege of self-defense would apply. It is not clear that Mieses was attacking Lien but his motorcycle appears to be one of those blocking his escape. While the bikers can claim that the physical assault only came after they were attacked, it lends credence to Lien’s fear for his family. Moreover, even if responding to an attack on them, the common law does not extend the privilege of self-defense for the bikers to cover retaliation (which is involved in the pursuit and trapping of the family before the attack). The bikers may clearly seek a citizen arrest in blocking the SUV but the attack escalated such an effort into an unprivileged assault. At that point, the SUV does not appear to be moving or threatening the bikers.
The criminal and tort liability of the bikers could be based on their participation in trapping the family like fleeing game. The thuggish conduct of the rally before the attack could be cited as evidence of their culpability and modus operandi. As for the family, Mieses and other could sue by claiming that they are not part of those threatening the family and were negligently run over by Lien. In other words, this could be a complete mess with over-lapping and conflicting claims.
so in others words all of you would have stayed there with double digit bikers attacking you,with your wife and child in the car? give me a flipping break. if cruz hadnt deliberately braked his bike in front of lien the bump wouldnt have happened. any anyone of you saying you would have stayed and waited for the cops is lying and you well know it.. the attack began the minute he bumped cruz who deliberately caused it. proven by the helmet cam on the biker who posted it….
@ randyjet i hope you get some sense and manage to find your humanity.. but hey karma is a itch that will get scratched….
The only mistake the driver of the SUV made was not throwing it in reverse and running over another dozen of the biker thugs at the end of the video.
Every identifiable member of the biker gang should be charged with attempted murder.
Oops I guess four tons is 8 thousand pounds. I meant to say about 4,000 pounds or more.
What idiot blocks four tons of steel with a motorcycle. He deserved what he got! All of them should be charged for attempted murder! I wish I could be on the jury.
It is quite clear that the riders were doing wrong by stopping traffic on the road. Lien reminds me of George Wallace who famously said that he would run over any protestor if they got in his way when he was driving. It is also clear that Lien was NOT being assaulted or threatened before he ran over the biker. After that, Lien became a fleeing felon who lost his rights by his own actions.
The bikers can claim immediate rage caused by the crime Lien committed against one of their members who were engaged in harmless pranks, which while illegal, did not require the use of deadly force to be used.
I hope Lien gets some heavy prison time for his crimes.
I wonder if Rob Petrie and Jerry Helper are members of the New Rochelle Motorcycle Club?
sad day in hell that kids can no longer play cops and robbers. but when you think about it. you really dont want your kids emulating the cops of today. next they will snatch the easy bake oven from the girls. and the list will go on. we can not allow them to distract us while they try to force thru that TPP pact elaine wrote about. that is what its truly all about
oops sorry i looked again and i see it i dont see how all of you missed it..
liveleak.com
Sources said Christopher Cruz, 28 (pictured) cut Alexian Lien off on the Henry Hudson Parkway and caused the accident that triggered a wild 4-mile chase through upper Manhattan.
Cops arrested one biker they say sparked a hell-on-wheels ordeal that ended with a mob of angry motorcyclists pulling a man from his SUV before beating and slashing him in front of his wife and 2-year-old child in upper Manhattan.
Christopher Cruz, 28, was riding with a swarm of motorcycles when he swerved in front of Alexian Lien’s Range Rover on the Henry Hudson Parkway and stopped short, causing the 33-year-old driver to bump the biker’s back tire, police sources said.
wow there is a whole section missing from the video… what started it all was one of the bikers deliberately swerved in front of liens suv and put on his brakes causing lien to bump him and that was the first attack which caused him to flee and hit the other bikers they all chased him and he stopped at one point and a biker took his helmet and broke out his window while another tried to smash the window where liens child was sitting. he fled again the last time he stopped for a red light at w 147th and that is when they dragged him out of the car beat and slashed him….
I agree with Jamie above. My uncle rides a motorcycle and he is absolutely selfish and rude.
him*
this is not a cut and dry case. the bikers were negligent and were 100% wrong in my eyes and I am a biker. I ride a loud obnoxious custom chopper but I am not a thug and I do not condone this activity. that being said, in the eyes of the law, the bikers could have a claim as indicated in this article. They could argue that Lien hit one of their fellow riders (as seen at the beginning of the video) and they could go after her for that. Lien could easily respond with a claim of contributory negligence. The bikers were simply riding too close to one another and his car, they were engaging in reckless activity, and the initial accident that provoked the incident was a result of gross negligence on the bikers behalf. Seeing that they were more negligent than Lien himself, who was cruising at an appropriate speed in the right lane, and abiding by all laws, they most likely could not succeed in a negligence case. As for Lien running over one of the bikers in an attempt to escape, that is a different story. Lien cannot use his car as a weapon, he cannot respond with excessive force, and he cannot retaliate… he can protect himself to a certain extent. The question is when is that line crossed? Could Lien argue contributory negligence here by arguing that Mieses was stop in the middle of a parkway, and riding a motorcycle which is inherently dangerous to begin with? Additionally, could Lien could argue self defense if he reasonably believed his life, or his families, was in immediate danger? Did he really have any other choice? does that matter? I think the bikers are in a bad spot here, but I am curious to see what comes of Lien, could he be penalized in any way and does he have a valid legal defense given the amount of force he used and the result of that force (a paralyzed man). Who is the cheapest cost avoider here? Society must now care for the paralyzed individual, is that fair? Is it fair to hold Lien liable when any reasonable person would have acted similarly?… as any case, it will come down to great lawyering, I’d love to hear a seasoned lawyers approach to defending Lien if he were sued.
The name of the Brando movie is “The Wild One”, and it is a great pulp flick. This gang seems to have studied the movie. And for addition yucks and/or irony points can you name the gang/”club” from “The Wild One”? That’s right, “The Black Rebels Motorcycle Club”.
Surely only a lawyer could think that Lien had done anything wrong…
No one wants to see anyone hurt but engaging in the kind of behavior on a road with a car is reckless and I can only imagine the feelings inside the car at being chased and harassed. It would see to me that those who caused this situation should be the only ones liable or charged. The injured party should sue his brother bikers.
Well, these particular bikers are thugs. Period.
jamie
i’ve been riding for fourty+ years and people who ride are just like people in cars, they come in all types. just like people in suv’s who are to busy to pay attention to what’s happening in front of them.
see, an entire comment with no name calling.
(p.s. i’ve never even seen a brando movie)
OT:
“Boy suspended after using finger as pretend gun
Mother fighting for removal of suspension from son’s record”
http://www.clickorlando.com/news/boy-suspended-after-using-finger-as-pretend-gun/-/1637132/22204876/-/hfv59e/-/index.html
“HARMONY, Fla. –
The mother of an 8-year-old Central Florida boy is fighting back after her son was suspended from school for using his finger as a play gun.
Bonnie Bennett said her son, Jordan, was suspended Friday at Harmony Community School in Osceola County after playing cops and robbers with another student.
“There was nothing in his hand. He used his thumb and index finger,” said Bennett. “It was a game. He made no threatening advances or threats to harm anyone. No words were said.”
Bennett said she would have been satisfied with some form of punishment but is worried now that since he’s been suspended, her son will be seen as a violent child.
“They took a child that has never been in trouble before and went to the extreme,” said Bennett. “A child that has no history of violence is now classified as a violent offender.”
But the Osceola County School District said it wasn’t just a simple game.
A school representative said the district can’t comment on the specifics of what happened because of confidentiality, but after reviewing the entire incident, Jordan’s actions showed to have violated the code of student conduct.
Bennett said she’ll continue to fight, hoping the principal will remove the suspension from her son’s school record.
“I’m prepared to go to court if I have to because this is wrong. It’s wrong for my son and any other child if they’re faced with the same thing because of a game,” Bennett said.
According to Bennett’s son, the other boy involved was also sent home because of the incident.”
These biker types are uncontrolled animals that deserve whatever punishment they receive. Biker types have this macho complex probably derived from some sort of juvenile video game or Brando movie, but when that misplaced macho results in reckless actions, they act more like rabid wild animals that need to be controlled to the fullest. Many bikers are excessively loud, obnoxious and unconcerned of their impact on others. When I now see a low rider or hear some loud no-pipe cycle, I simply think of monkeys and circus clowns on unicycles and it makes me laugh at their true station.
I think there is historical / cultural knowledge that those in the van claim of being surrounded, attacked, and beaten by a motorcycle gang surely would give them case to fear their own physical attack and that this belief would be reasonable. I don’t believe the motorcyclists will prevail on this one. But it is dependant a bit on what happened during the initial stop before the man was run over.