http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ukdkgLYYbw

The incident began when the driver of the Range Rover [in the viral above] called 911 to report a group of bikers stunting and flossing on New York City’s West Side Highway. A biker parked in front the luxury SUV, causing the driver to stop. When a biker walked toward the car, the Rover driver floored it, smashing into several bikes and riders. When the truck got caught in traffic, a pursuer tried to rip open the door. When the driver got caught in traffic a second time, a biker smashed the driver-side window with his helmet. Cops told the New York Post that the biker slashed the driver in front of his wife and child. He ended up with a couple of black eyes and stitches to his face and chest. Would a gun have made the situation better? Only if you understand that it could have been much worse without it. [h/t Allen V.]

RELATED ARTICLESMORE FROM AUTHOR

195 COMMENTS

  1. I was wondering when you were going to get to this one.

    Also fits in: “This is what happens to an unarmed populace.”

    • Perfect fit for the latter. In Manhattan he had a better chance of obtaining a comet to throw at them than getting a gun permit.

    • Regardless of the fact that New York criminalizes its citizens for being armed, New York does not criminal its citizens for having bulk fasteners in your car. If I lived in New York City and anything even remotely like this happens again, I would keep two large boxes of nails in the car. If a bunch of jackasses on bikes tries to ambush me, they won’t be chasing anyone after I dump those two boxes out of each window.

      Not sure if anyone ever thought about it, but I assure you that motorcycles do not work with flat tires. I speak from experience being a passenger on a motorcycle that suddenly got a flat tire. It wasn’t fun.

      Note: for maximum effectiveness, start at the left lane and move across all lanes as you dump the nails to insure full coverage.

      • nails wouldn’t work well because they would mostly lie flat. caltrops would be ok but cumbersome. but pennies would work fabulously.

  2. The question I have is who really started this confrontation in the first place. Where the motorcyclists just being assholes or was the driver of the Range Rover being an asshole. Details please. 😀

      • Again, I want to know what happened BEFORE the brake-check. Like I said elsewhere, I don’t condone the behavior of the bikers, but way too many people use their vehicles as weapons – something motorcyclists like myself take very seriously. You can be an asshole and bump or juke at another car and not kill anyone, you do that to a motorcyclist at any kind of speed and you kill someone. From this point of view I can at least understand the reactions. But again, I don’t have all the detail and the footage in my opinion doesn’t seem to catch the beginnings of this incident.

        • Doesn’t matter, except perhaps in your own personal, self-styled cosmos. It’s certainly possible, even likely, that the SUV driver may have driven carelessly, with a sense of entitlement, and could have pissed these people off. However, it’s beyond preposterous to suggest that a suburbanite with his family in the car is going to pick a fight outright with a scores strong throng of bikers. Even if he did, that’s his crime and doesn’t grant carte blanch to the bikers to initiate violence against anyone. They should call the cops. I know, I know, that’s not how bikers roll. Doubtful they’re *real* bikers to begin with, but rather another flavor of poseur; but that’s another discussion.

          Suffice it to say, anyone who’s willing to hunt you down for miles and miles on the expressway, then viciously attack you in your vehicle, is probably someone with a fairly short temper and even more limited range of responses.

          What really surprised me is this driver’s negligence in LOCKING THE DOOR, calling the police, or driving to a police station. Those, and about a dozen other shortcomings in his countermeasures, leave me shaking my head and thanking God I live in Texas………and all that that implies.

        • I have no doubts the a-hole on the bike was the cause of the original “accident”. I have seen this behavior many times in Detroit. What happened was the typical mob attack that defines urban youffs,

      • How about this gem from the Daily News article:

        “The commissioner said police were monitoring the ride — which is loosely organized by the group Hollywood Stuntz.”

        So much for the police being there to protect you, even when they technically already are there…somewhere…

        • They were obviously monitoring the ride using the thousands of surveillence and traffic cameras that Secretary Kelly installed. Between munches and sips, of course.

          And a dispatch to the scene? That was duly entered into the incedibly expensive 911 computer system. A unit is expected in one to three days to take statements.

    • I think getting out of there was the best answer at first. At the second stop, when the biker opened the door (which shouldn’t have been unlocked, but that’s no excuse), he’d have been looking down the barrel of a gun as he reached for the handle. But again, the driver had a way out and he took it. Still a good call, imo. The third stop, when he was in traffic and there was nowhere to go? Yeah, the second that guy swung at the window with his helmet, I’d have dropped him where he stood, pour encourager les autres.

      • I agree Matt. The only question I have at this point is was the driver on the blower with 911 as the bikers were chasing him? He took the best option and tried to escape, twice. If that were me and I was atttacked by several guys with helmets, knives with my wife and infant in the car, I would have shot both of them; no question. And then, I would have promptly STFU!!

      • Everyone keeps assuming this whole incident started with the guy braking in front of the suv. Something had to have happened before that.

        • And you’re basing that on what, exactly? We’ve all seen drivers act like assholes, and we’ve all seen bikers act like assholes. Everyone has their prejudices. The fact that you’ve referred to automobile drivers as “cagers,” which is a well-known term with derogatory inferences, tells me exactly which side of this argument you’re going to come down on, every single time.

        • Based on what every rider knows as fact and has drilled into their head over and over in training:

          DON’T EVER STOP SHORT IN FRONT OF ANYTHING ON WHEELS. YOU WILL BE DEAD. Period.

          Car vs rider = car always wins.

        • I would not be surprised at all if the bikers initiated the whole thing. Reno’s “street vibrations” event just ended and our roads are returning to peace after three days traffic violation hell.

          I’m not sure if it is a mob mentality thing, freedom of two wheels thing, or what, but when these guys get their groups together, anything goes. They go too slow, too fast, weave in and out of lanes, follow too close, cut people off, pass in the median, and generally act like a bunch of entitled pricks. They ride as if the road is their own private playground and everybody else is intruding.

          I don’t have a problem when people cautiously break a few traffic laws, but when someone intentionally endangers other motorists (or themselves), then they deserve whatever ill fate results of their foolishness. Road rage only occurs when two or more douchebags get in close proximity of eachother on a roadway; and those guys came prepared.

          Sorry. Had to vent. Spent the weekend dodging clowns like these…

        • Right BDub … because a bunch of guys riding crotch rockets with no license plates, swerving all over all three lanes, and slowing to less than 20 mph on a freeway with absolutely no obstructions are model motorist who go out of their way to obey all traffic laws and practice evasive driving techniques.

          Did you not see the video? The bikers set a trap for the SUV. They slowed to a stop on an open highway with no obstructions in front of them. These were not “nice guys” on bikes. They were criminals.

    • The second a helmet hit my window, go loud. However, the one trying to open the door would have honestly probably been the first one to be looking at my now drawn firearm, but either way, mob mentality never wins. Looks like the driver honked and the bikers, and one biker intentionally slowed down to impact the rover for the initial action.

      • “biker intentionally slowed down to impact the rover…”
        Dija notice the extra-large rear bumper in the M/Cs? I can buy “slowed down” but not “impact.”

    • I wouldn’t have shot anyone at all in this instance. I would have run over or crashed so many bikers that I’d either have to be cleared by a self defense claim or spend the rest of my life in prison for 50+ counts of vehicular assault and attempted murder.

      The words ‘raging rhino’ come to mind in describing what my driving style would look like had I been in this situation. There would have been no one passing me to initiate another rolling road block and definitely no one in the shooting zone along side my vehicle, at least no one who wasn’t a split second from being run over.

      As I said before on this thread, personally I’d have reversed over everyone behind me when traffic impeded my forward progress. Even assuming that the SUV caused the initial problem, at the point people are forcing you to stop, slashing your tires and attempting to force entry into your vehicle a reasonable person would fear death or great bodily harm and thus lethal force is justified in the defense. Self defense doesn’t specify guns under lethal force; the SUV is fair game as a weapon to.

      This should have been a ‘defensive vehicle use of the day, a DVU if you will. Anyone continuing the pursuit after you’ve demonstrated that you’ll use the vehicle as a weapon, particularly anyone who does more than follow to inform police of your location has taken on the mantle of the mod that’s attacking, and all become fair game for being knocked over, crushed, etc.

      Consider this: If one guy holds the door shut while a few more attempt to seriously injure or kill you, is it self defense if you shoot the guy holding the door? Of course it is, he’s complicit and a key component of the assault in progress. That means that all the bikers blocking the escape route when that vehicle was stopped by traffic to the front became open to justifiable use of lethal force (i.e. running them over).

      And, since it’s been nominated for quote of the day I’ll repeat: “I don’t know how many bikes and bikers a Range Rover can run over before it suffers critical failure, but I’m guessing it’s all of them.”

      When it comes to self defense killing or injuring a multitude of those attacking you is no different from killing or injuring one. Just as the rule is that the number of bullets it takes to stop the attack is the correct number to fire, the number of attackers you have to put down to stop the assault is the number to put down. 1 or 100 it makes no difference.

      • The SOP for defending yourself against someone who is trying to stop you in your vehicle is first to escape using speed and maneuver and if that doesn’t work start playing bump’em cars especially if you have a size advantage. Unlike the movies the Range Rover could have taken out the bikes trying to head him off. In a high speed car vs bike encounter the bike looses 100% of the time. You just bang into the bike and the driver goes flying . He only had to do it once to stop the attack. Nobody on bike is going to tangle with a determined driver in a full sized, sedan, SUV or a truck. If you are going a counterattack then you better be on the horn to cops calling for help or else you are going to get charged along with the bikers.

        • Precisely what I’ve been saying tdiinva. I’m working on the strong assumption that having run completely over one biker and then obviously and intentional attempting to crash anyone attempting to parallel or pass would be a powerful deterrent to the others. In fact, I think it would be safe to assume that anyone still attempting to parallel or pass was attempting assault, all the more reason to violently resist it.

        • Did you watch the video? He did exactly that. He probably ran through a half-dozen bikers when he was trying to escape. That’s when they started to chase him like a pack of dogs, until he exited the highway to escape and got stuck in traffic.

        • Yeah I did. At one point he was trapped he drove through them to try to escape. However, when they approached him again he just drove on. The proper response was to attack by swerving at the bikes flanking him and driven them into the guard rail. Do that a couple of times and game over. “Never fly straight and level in the combat zone.”

        • He was an idiot for getting off the highway. The proper response was to report the attack from a rest stop in Albany.

        • That depends, but assuming he had a full or almost full tank, a range rover can definitely outlast a motorcycle, especially one going full break with multiple stops and hard acceleration.

  4. I dunno…kinda looks like the driver freaked out and started it by running over the motorcyclists. If i just watched some dude run over my buddy, I’d be pretty pissed too. But I wasn’t there and didn’t see it. According to the youtube description, the drver killed one biker…just saying

    • NYPD says reports of deaths are complete fabrications. They report nothing beyond minor injuries for anyone involved.

      • It doesn’t matter whether he killed anyone with the SUV or not, he used it as a weapon/battering-ram. At that point I consider it a vehicular assault, a hit and run. And I don’t care how uncomfortable the guy was in the car – driving over someone and their bike definitely escalated this beyond a minor traffic confrontation.

        • Is there any justifiable reason to repeatedly try boxing the guy in or haul him out of his car? Neither of those would work out for me, double if I’ve got a woman and child with me. Once they start doing that, unless I already injured one, there’s no way I’m not going for the gas pedal. Whoever decided to brake check me did it on purpose and the entire crew is mirroring slowing down to “talk” wirh me… I sincerely doubt negotiations were on his mind.

          Then, I don’t know what exactly happened before he ran over the one biker but if advancing towards the car swearing happened then that is all the intent, ability opportunity and jeopardy I need to react like it is time to escape.

        • “…a minor traffic confrontation…”

          At what point does it go beyond a “minor traffic confrontation?” If you and five of your closest friends are advancing angrily on my car, at what point do I feel threatened enough to do what I have to do to get away? If it looks like you have mayhem on your minds, how far am I supposed to allow it to go? ‘Til you get to my window? ‘Til someone starts yelling (which likely happened RFN if people were angry)? ‘Til someone hits my window with a closed fist? ‘Til they hit it with something harder and it breaks?

          The truth is, from that camera angle, we have no evidence of what was happening prior to him bursting out of the pack of bikers. We can’t see if they were calmly saying “Sir, let’s talk about this” or if it was more like “You motherf*cker what the f*ck do you think you’re doing I’m going to kick your ass you little pussy!” But clearly he felt threatened enough that he found his only way out was through the people in front of him.

          You don’t know, and neither do I. The rest is just shouting.

        • What I simply can’t fathom is this: We know the right thing for the bikers to have done after the collision would be to immediately call 911 and let the law impose justice on the ill-doer. Why, oh why, didn’t they let the law handle it? Let me think about this for a minute……

        • “…a minor traffic confrontation…”

          Blocking three lanes of traffic on a highway to box somebody in the middle of your MC is not a minor traffic confrontation. That was a blatant display of aggression. There is nothing minor about 20+ people swarming you with their chests puffed.

      • That still doesn’t make the SUV driver right. We do not have any facts as to what happened prior to the start of the video. All we have is what happens after the guy rams and runs over bikes and riders. Hell yeah you’d get your ass chased in my neck of the woods. The same as if you rammed another car/truck. Two wrongs do not make a right, and that assumes that the riders did something “wrong” to begin with, which has not yet been proven.

        BTW – “cagers” or “cages” is not a derogatory term, it’s simply a term to describe any vehicle that’s not a motorcycle.

        • Every single time I’ve heard the term “cagers” used, it’s been referring to the drivers, not the cars, and it’s been said with a derogatory tone. Every single time.

        • I cannot claim any knowledge of NY State or local laws. However, where I live, if the driver of the SUV felt that someone was: Using or about to use unlawful deadly physical force, Committing or about to commit a kidnapping in any degree, assault in the first or second degree, In the process of unlawfully and forcefully entering, or has unlawfully and forcefully entered, an occupied vehicle, or is attempting to remove, or has forcefully removed, a person against his or her will from any occupied vehicle when the person has a legal right to be there, and provided that the person using the deadly physical force knows or has reason to believe that an unlawful and forcible entry or unlawful and forcible act is occurring.

          Seeing as how the SUV driver had a child in the car, any number of these situations could have been met by the other individual trying to open the door to the car and certainly once one starts bashing at the window where his 2 year old is seated.

          Unless somehow we’re to be convinced that the SUV Driver was the initial aggressor here, from the very beginning and that he never withdraws from the encounter and effectively communicates to the other person his or her intent to do so.

    • What? Because a biker gang would completely deplete a 7 round +1 magazine without saving you from danger? I want to say hogwash but…I’m short on sarcasm right now.

      In all seriousness this is probably the only tactical situation for an AR pistol.

      • AR pistols jam a lot… unless they fixed that and by extended mag i mean extended by free state terms as in over 30 rounds 7+1 in an AR ain’t enough to drop one hopped up starving somali let alone a biker.

        • Me saying AR pistol was meant to imply standard capacity 30 round mags. 7+1 being what NY has right now was the contrast. A better solution would be a Glock 17 with a 33 round mag.

          • I’m assuming he’s reaching into the console or glove compartment not reaching for the roof hatch to man his 7.62mm turret…*chuckles*

      • My XDm compact with both mags has 32 9mm on tap. If they don’t get the picture after the first 15 take lead I can pretty much be assured I will be running dry before they do.

  6. I prefer the Burt Gummer aproach, pop it into 4 wheel and run ’em down. Then try not to run completely out of ammo. haha.

  7. The driver was armed. . . with a couple of tons of steel and hundreds of horsepower. What he lacked was will. . . specifically the will to put it in reverse when traffic blocked his escape route without regard for the pursuers behind him. I’m not sure how many bikes and bikers the average range rover can run over before something critical fails, but I’m going to guess all of them. I suspect that had he had a pistol he wouldn’t have used it much the way he didn’t use the weapon he did have, the SUV itself. Really, having run over several bikers already I’m not sure what his reluctance was to back over a few more.

    The whole time I was watching the video I wondered why he didn’t indicate, by swerving and hard breaking, that he still intended to use the vehicle as a weapon. If one thought the situation warranted lethal response enough to run over the first few, why not scatter the rest when he had ample opportunity and lots of empty highway to do it with? I suspect that having put a few more violently down on the asphalt at highway speeds the rest might not have been so sure of continued pursuit.

    This is what comes not of being disarmed but rather of misunderstanding emergent lethal force encounters and failing to go far enough to ensure ones survival.

    I’d love to know if the driver was ever charged with anything. . . .

    • Quote of the day…
      “I’m not sure how many bikes and bikers the average range rover can run over before something critical fails, but I’m going to guess all of them.”

      Per the Daily News the driver called 911 because they bikers were acting crazy, they got mad, tried to block him in and teach him a lesson, so he ran over the bikes in his way.

      As soon as the biker tried to extract him from the vehicle he should have gone Spy Hunter on them. Then driven to the GWB and let the cops shoot them. Going side streets was a clear loser.

      Bottom line, the sheep mentality cost him a beating. Ultimately the driver’s lucky, we just had a knockout game-thrill kill in my town. Totally senseless.

      • “Going side streets was a clear loser.” I winder if he was trying to hole up in a safe house in town somewhere. And didn’t realize that THERE WOULD BE LIGHTS AND STOPPED TRAFFIC on the street in the Bronx?

  9. As Ron White said ” I don’t know how many of them it would have taken to whip my a$$, but I knew how many they were going to use.”

    I don’t know how many CCers are prepared to take on a whole biker gang, some of whom were probably armed themselves. I’d be worried about escalation putting me and my family in a gun fight. Any tactical guru’s have a take on this scenario?

    • That is one of my favorite Ron White quotes ever, and is completely apropos in this situation. I’m disappointed I didn’t think of it first.

    • Use the vehicle to your advantage and stay mobile do not fire unless you see a weapon drawn or they get too close and you have no where to go.

    • Um…it wasn’t a biker gang. It was a bunch of bike enthusiasts and this is an annual event.

      And It wouldn’t have happened to me, because I wouldn’t have run into one of the back of them when they were slowing down.

      On the other hand, had I been one of the guys on the bikes when he ran over them and started surging forward, I would have defended myself.

      • “…when they were slowing down.”

        They weren’t slowing down. The bike in front of the Rover was, and the rest slowed because he did, sympathetically. There was no traffic in front of them to slow the pack. And even if the biker wasn’t specifically trying to draw the bump, he was doing it to be a jackass. Whether the driver of the Rover bumped him intentionally just a little as a lesson or did it accidentally because he simply couldn’t slow as fast as the bike, we’ll never know for sure. But however the bump happened, it would not have happened if the guy on the bike hadn’t decided to pull his balls out and show them off.

  10. Something I thought was interesting was that when the driver felt it necessary to flee the initial encounter, they used their vehicle quite effectively. But what boggles my mind is how shy they got about it at each successive step during the encounter, even to the point where they effectively just gave up and sat there instead of shifting into reverse and at least giving it the ole-college try.

    • My thought was that they should have stayed on the highway where you don’t have to stop and become vulnerable. Dial 911 while cruising and go hog hunting until they stop coming or the police show up.

      • If my understanding of the geography is correct, they ran out of highway. There is essentially a loop that goes around Manhattan, which is the FDR on the east side, then the West Side “Highway” on the lower west side, and then it becomes the Henry Hudson on the upper west. Unfortunately, the West Side “Highway” has at least a dozen lights.

        • Ok, so it looks like it started on the Henry Hudson by the Upper West Side, and continued north towards the GW Bridge. The driver then made the mistake of heading into Harlem. Bad call dude.

        • You can stay on open highway uninterrupted from Battery Park (either side of the island) to Montreal or Boston.

  11. With crap like this happening all the time, I finally purchased GoPro to use a dash cam.

    You need to look further into the story. It started with the Land Rover Driver bumping into one of the guys on the motorcycles. When people started to yell at him, the Land Rover driver ran over some motorcycles and the guys on bikes took chase. They wanted the guy to stop and the incident continued to escalate.

    Because this is NYC and people there are often afraid of their own shadows, “OMG!, scary bikers!” The guy in the Land Rover was probably having his heart beat of his chest since he was not within the 4 walls of his apartment. This is the mentality of an urbanite. Typical over reaction. I am sure they are already calling Mayor Mike to have him ban Motorcycles.

    They, are all at fault IMHO

    If the guy in the SUV had just stopped and worked it out like it was any other traffic accident or just stopped and called the cops it would not have escalated to the level it did. People got pissed once he ran over the bikes where he could of hurt others as well. The bikers can be jerks as well and did not have to crowd around the car. It could have been a road rage incident before what we see in the video as well. But there is no clear cut innocent here.

    Are these gang of bikers jerks? Yes, often, but this got out of hand and was started by the guy in the SUV.

    I bet the SUV driver gets booked for hit and run, whomever smashed his window and cut up his face for assault.

    If anything, this is a lesson of what not to do and how to prevent things from getting out of hand.

    Not sure what pulling out a gun would have done but make things worse.

    • ” It started with the Land Rover Driver bumping into one of the guys on the motorcycles.”

      No, it didn’t start with the car bumping the bike. That was about step three. Prior to that, the guy in the jeans was clearly exchanging words (or gestures) with the driver, and then he pulled into the Rover’s lane next to it (sharing the lane), and then swung over close in front of the vehicle, all the while maintaining eye contact with the driver, and then followed it all up by brake-checking him, to force the bump. I don’t know why the biker was acting like that, but based on what’s in the video, none of it was the driver’s fault.

      • Not you or anyone else but the people there know when or how it started. Ask yourself why the guy felt the need to exchange words with the driver prior to the brake-check. I’m not condoning it, bu it is indicative that something was going on prior to the camera documentation.

        This seems to be a perfect storm of SUV asshole meets tribal peer-group, and escalation ensued.

        I am literally amazed at all the armchair-Bronson’s diagramming how and when they would have started shooting, based only on this footage alone. But when its an actual shooting, its all, “lets not rush to judgement”, and “we don’t know all the facts”.

        I’m disappointed in the AI.

        • I’m going to try to lay this out as clearly as possible. Forcing another vehicle to a stop with intent to confront the driver for whatever reason, unless you personally witnessed the occupant(s) of the vehicle commit a felony, is illegal. A prosecutor has several things he calls this sort of behavior, kidnapping and false imprisonment come to mind. Both are considered violent felonies, and both would open the perpetrator up to being subjected to justifiable lethal force in self defense.

          But that’s putting a very fine edge on what is visible in the video. At the point some bikers dismount and approach the vehicle I believe a good case could be made that a reasonable person would fear death or serious bodily harm was imminent, which opens everyone intentionally blocking the vehicle from escape up to justifiable application of lethal force, thus strike two for the bikers.

          Even if the driver of the SUV was not justified in running over the first couple of bikes in his attempt to escape and thus committed vehicular assault, at the point he attempted to flee and was prevented from doing so he was back on safe ground from a self defense stand point. He attempted to retreat thus setting him back to neutral from a self defense standpoint.

          Which is why everything after the second stop when they opened his door would have been self defense, and why I personally would have run over or forced to crash every bike that attempted to parallel me in either lane or to pass. The situation at that point was without doubt one in which a reasonable person would fear death or serious bodily harm. Also, since the SUV is attempting to flee, anyone still harassing it or attempting to stop/enter it is a willing participant in an ongoing assault/defense situation and all open to having force applied to them.

          The only possible legal argument is that the bikers had witnessed what they believe to be a felony and were attempting to affect a citizen’s arrest. Any lawyer will tell you that you’re on extremely thin ice if someone gets hurt during a citizen’s arrest even when you’re right about the fleeing felon.
          Since they cut and beat the driver when they finally boxed him in, it’s going to be a hard sell that they were attempting a legal citizen’s arrest and not street justice or just an unwarranted assault.
          I don’t know if the bikers stuck around after the beat down, but if they didn’t all claims to CA are completely lost, as they are if the bikers did not surrender themselves to police along with their prisoner.
          Of course, had the driver responded appropriately to the situation there would have been no beat down, instead the culprits of this brazen attack would have been scattered all over the roadway.

        • And the “tough guy” in the LR would be in Rikers for vehicular homicide or, at best, attempted murder.

        • BDub, I’m with the AI on this one. Dont let the door hit you in the rear bumper on the way out, if you cant hang with the reality checks people are giving you here, tho.

    • Pascal: If the guy in the SUV had just stopped and worked it out like it was any other traffic accident or just stopped and called the cops it would not have escalated to the level it did.

      There’s a lot of presumption in your statement. With a dozen+ other bikes all stopped nearby, the driver would not be unreasonable in assuming a threat.
      Why did a dozen+ bikes have to stop, block EVERY LANE, AND box in the SUV? In biker group-think, is that how minor traffic incidents are “worked out”?
      And to be quite honest, there’s a major intimidation / douche-bag factor in dozens of bikers crowding a highway. It may be technically legal, but it is dangerous. To organize such an event and then to react to minor accidents with gang-style intimidation is stupid.

  13. Speaking of the car as a weapon, I ran the math for kinetic energy, and that Range Rover has over 250K joules of energy going at a relatively slow 30mph.

    • A child can knock an 800 lb. bike over at 30 mph by smacking it because that bike + rider’s weight is balanced on two two square inch patches of rubber.

  14. Ok…so the guy in the suv slams into several bikes, actually running over one of them, and breaks a biker’s leg…which is great bodily harm in this state, and reason alone to respond with deadly force. How is it that the bikers are the bad guys?

    • Well if you ignore the part where the bikers probably started the incident and scared the crap out of that guy so bad that he felt the need to start running over people… They certainly were in the wrong for chasing down and assaulting him, that’s far outside the realm of self defense.

    • I wouldn’t believe New Yorkers are allowed to pursue and assault a person that is attempting to flee the scene. New Yorkers are supposed to call the police and let them handle it. This assumes there were NYPD around that would be willing to face the bikers.

      BTW where was SWAT and the APC?

    • FLAME DELETED. Did you watch the video, and read the article. You can see they swarmed him and forced him to stop. there were several bikers off their bikes. They started an assault and he fled. They definitely don’t come even close to innocent in any regard. These types of biker “gangs” are complete assholes in all regards.

      Use of deadly force is for defense, not assault. The driver was not actively attacking at any point, only fleeing. The idiot bikers are the ones that forced his only escape path to be through them. AND AGAIN. CHILL OUT.

    • It all depends on who started it. If the bikers were the first aggressors, then the SUV driver was completely justified in running them over, if he had to, to get away.

    • The bikers initiated a rolling roadblock and were slowing the SUV down to a stop. That is an extremely aggressive move and one that warrants deadly force all by itself. If you don’t want SUVs going Rambo on your bikes, don’t go doing rolling roadblocks.

    • Cecil, regardless of the fine points, in the jurisdiction you aren’t allowed to pursue a fleeing assailant shoot or impose an aggravated assault. I can’t, try as I may, imagine why the bikers themselves didn’t call 911, letting the law do its job. Are there other biking gangs who don’t this would the correct course of action? Is an outreach needed before they, uh, accidentally break a law?

  15. I ride but theses guys are compete morons. Never hang with bikers that don’t have plates. Never. It was very apparent that they initiated the conflict, and by getting off the bike he validated the drivers actions.

    The driver should have stuck to the free way and lowered his speed enough to assist in the police response, they are going to have to catch up after all. I personally would have started running those chasing me down off the road.

    • I dunno about that… I was in a situation only a little bit like this a few years ago — I say only a little bit because nothing untoward happened, but it was scary as shit and there was no avoiding it.

      About 50 bikers pulled out of a rest stop on I-84 and had me boxed in within seconds. When I saw an opening I tried to move over, but they cut me off and took turns swerving in front of me just to make me hit the brakes. When my wife finally got her phone out of her purse to call 911, they took off. The whole thing lasted only a couple minutes, but it was a couple minutes too long.

      What if I had been unable to avoid hitting one of them? What if they had decided I was good prey instead of merely a passing sport? If they had stopped me and come toward the car, like the thugs in this video, I would’ve done exactly what the guy in the SUV did. I had two young children in the car. That car was my only weapon and my only protection, and I was prepared to use it.

      After that I bought a trucker’s tire-thumper (this was before I owned guns), and to this day it lives in my wife’s car. I also made a mace — a cured maple branch weighted w/a 3/4×8″ lag bolt embedded and several 1.5″ washers — that sits tucked next to the seat in my truck for the times when having a gun would get me in trouble with the gov’t overlords.

      Nothing like seeing how helpless you are against a mob to change your perspective on shit.

  19. False. This is a case of ‘don’t do stupid things in stupid places with stupid people.’ When he apparently intentionally didn’t slow down and rear ended the bike that was attempted murder and everything after that was fleeing the scene… The bikers aren’t any better, but if I’m on my bike in front of you when you hit the gas to run me down I’M justified pulling my gun on you! And if you intentionally run down one of my fellow bikers, under any circumstances, you better be mighty apologetic or you’ll see a similar scene…

    • Oh, so you regularly gang up on cars and pull in front of them forcing them stop and run into you. Then you start beating on their car because you were an ass hole. Then when they flee the violent confrontation, initiated by your entitled ass, you run them down and shoot them. Sounds like you would fit right right in. Better go on and move to NY now, that way no one will shoot back. The rest of the country doesn’t want your looser ass anyway.

    • If you put your bike that close in front of me and brake-check me there better be a damn good reason, like you’re stopping me from driving into a giant hole in the road. Short of that, you get what you get.

      • I’m thinking that if it was ones plan to stop me for reason of preventing me from damaging my vehicle or injuring myself ones friends would likely not start beating my car when a minor collision occurred.

    • Yeah, perhaps I’m stereo typing here….but I fail to see how a thirty something family man on a drive with his wife and two year old would intentionally screw with a few dozen douche bags on bitch bikes. That said, I’d be willing to bet that said bitch bikers initiated this event. I could be wrong I suppose.

      • My bet (from experience_ is that he changed lanes without looking and nearly forced one of them into the wall. THAT’S when the camera came on.

    • So you condone reckless driving while on a motorcycle and assault?

      It’s clear to me from the vid that a rider cut off the Range Rover and slammed on his brakes, he may have even wanted the RR to hit him lightly.

      If my buddy did that to a car, I wouldn’t defend him. I’d demand to know why he thinks riding that way is acceptable.

    • Someone who brakes like that in front of a Range Rover is asking his next of kin to identify what would look like a squashed over ripe banana. You have no idea what the driver’s intentions are, or whether he even sees you. The place to discuss your differences with the driver is not in the middle of the highway. We don’t need to lose any pro-gun rights people to vehicular accidents or homicides.

    • Which stops faster, Range Rover or crotch rocket? At the distance at which the first biker pulled in front of the Range, the driver never had a hope in hell of pulling up quick enough to avoid bumping the bike. Clear as day that “crew” or “posse” or whatever was looking for trouble.

      My take on this: the posse of bikers were riding all over the place on the highway acting like they own the joint (stupid behavior), the driver of the Rover got on the horn to let the bikers know their “stunting” wasn’t appreciated (questionable decision, given the number of bikers and taking into account the mob mentality), one especially macho biker cut in front of the Range and brake checked him hoping to start a confrontation (stupid behavior), collision ensues, macho biker is indignant despite knowing the driver had no chance of pulling up fast enough and gets off his bike (confrontational behavior), other biker(s) approach driver looking for retribution for accident caused by their homie (mob mentality), driver sees driving through bikes/bikers as the only means of escape (unfortunate yet realistic), driver takes off over/through bikes and tries to escape (unrealistic, crotch rockets are faster than Range Rovers), bikers follow seeking yet more retribution for the result of their childish behavior (what adult “stunts” anyway?), bikers inevitably catch up to driver and right perceived wrongs.

    • I’ll agree with you on one point James, you had better be pretty apologetic to a guy in an SUV that you just brake checked. If the driver of this one had done what many of us here appear to think was the ‘right thing’ in his defense there would be dozens of bikers dead or in the hospital at this point. Heck, if the driver of the SUV was in the wrong his conviction for assault and murder wont mend your broken bones or resurrect you from the dead.

      You’re illustrating well exactly the attitude most of us are assuming these bikers had; that because they are many they can administer their own justice. If that’s really what you’re advocating, be careful who you pick on, they may just run you over.

  20. Whether the driver should or shouldn’t have used his vehicle or a gun to defend himself is beside the point. This is what happens when people live in a “only cops and bad guys have guns” world, which is what most of the Northeast is. These bikers did this because they assumed that 1) a young Asian guy in a Range Rover with his wife and kid is going to be easy to intimidate and assault, 2) there is no chance the guy has a gun or other means to hurt the bikers, 3) they can get away quickly if and when the cops arrive. There was no risk to the bikers to behave this way. I will guarantee 100% that this group of bikers would NEVER have done this on a street in the west side of Chicago. The people driving a high end car there could very well be local gang members who are not only armed, but would have no hesitation about killing you. And with a couple texts or phone calls could have 50 of their compatriots separating everyone of those bikers from his/her precious “ride” and/or life. Disarm the populace and make them believe that their only defense is the cops, as New York is so keen on doing, and a group of young jack asses can ruin a productive person’s life.

    • There is also a pretty decent chance that these bikers were illegally armed. In this case, the DGU could have turned into something from a Tarantino movie.

      Not saying I wouldn’t have wanted the option, but every situation is unique.

      • Perhaps, but I’d put the chances kind of low. The GoPro helmet cam is kind of a counter-indicator for most law-breaking activity.

        • So riding on sidewalks, blowing though lights, riding the wrong way down one-way streets and bulling “brake checks” in the midde of a freeway aren’t illegal activities? If the gun is concealed, you’d never see it on the camera.

          Also, a lot of those bikes don’t seem to have plates (illegal). Oh, plus the assault on a driver.

        • Tom, are you telling me you’ve missed all the cell-phone videos offering the world an instant replay of a beat down, rape, or other source of pride in the ‘hood? The poor bikers can’t hold their cell-phone up. They need both hands for the clutch and gas, and besides, they might get bug juice on their cell.

        • Ha! Indeed there were a lot of citations and misdemeanors at least, felonies very possibly. My point is that guys who video their hot shot antics are generally not violent criminals, and don’t generally start the day thinking of how to prey upon the helpless or think they might need a gun in the course of the day’s business (as a gang member would). There were several instances — mainly the final attack with the helmet — that would have been more “convincing” with a gun. Why pound on a window when you can shoot it? Combined with the relative difficulty of acquiring a gun in NY, I think most of the bikers would be unarmed. That’s just my .02.

  21. Watching the video it’s obvious that one biker cut off the range rover then slammed on the brakes. The Range rover (being a 3 ton+ car) couldn’t slow down as fast as the sportbike (probably could have had a chance if it was a harley) and collided with the rear of the bike. The biker did not go down, but there was probably some minor damage to the rear faring and possibly the rear tire. Given that the accident was entirely caused by the biker, and that the rest of his “crew” were also stopping ON THE HIGHWAY he absolutely had a good reason to floor it. Maybe the guy who had his leg broken would have been fine if he wouldn’t have come to a stop on the highway which is certainly illegal.

    The driver should have reversed it at the red light and continued to flee. Pulling a gun in this instance would have maybe bought enough time for the light to change, but you have no chance at de-escalating that situation yourself with any firearm, let alone a pistol. Shame on the NYPD for not owning up to their responsibility and getting there faster. If you work to disarm the populace, the citizen’s blood is on your hands, no matter what the corrupt politicians (including judges) say.

    Proud to be a motorcyclist, and not a biker.

    • Yup. Been a motorcyclist. That was a stupid stunt, brake-checking the SUV. Read this forum: http://www.gsxr.com/showthread.php?t=139521
      to get a sense of the immaturity of some bikers, vs the outrage of the more mature.

      That was pure and simple mob-rule, vigilantism at best, more like kidnapping or car-jacking with felonious assault. No excuse whatsoever for it, outrage for your buddies or not. And this group doesnt have a defense, with many having apparently already removed their license plates.

      Watching the video its clear the rider with the go-cam was ALSO apparently helping to egg others along- scanning ahead and back, slowing down to motion other riders ahead, and pointing to the SUV when it exited the freeway. The size of the smaller group indicates this wasnt part of the original route…

      Been a dad driving the kids in the mommy-mobile, too. Imagine a screaming wife and likely screaming 5 year old in the car seat in back having to escape already once from a mob of assholes threatening you, justified or not, and IMHO, the bikers as a group were lucky to get off so easy.

  22. i’d be emptying the first clip when the window got smashed!! reload and tnything getting close would get hot lead!! just because there’s a gang doesn’t justify mob rule!!! if I were in the suv, there’d be a LOT OF DEAD BIKERS!!!!

    • “i’d be emptying the first clip when the window got smashed!!”

      OK, but I’m more curious how you would maneuver an M1 Garand around in the front seat of your Land Rover. Those things are big inside, I know, but come on!

      • I’m not so sure Matt, I once saw an Garand that had been chopped to about 3 inches of stock and had the barrel shortened considerably. Something like what Barrows did to a BAR. That could be useful within the confines of a vehicle, though everyone is going to be deaf.

  24. I’ve seen groups of these type of asshats riding from Richmond to DC in I-95. Dozens of them, riding in and out of traffic, creating a very dangerous situation. Seems to me that this guy purposely slowed in front of the Rover to initiate contact.

    • Is there anyone on this thread who seriously believes an asian guy out with his family in a Land Rover decided to take on a biker gang? Doubts that he tried to break through, escape, because he realized he was in the middle of an “a##-hole#s gone wild” episode. Really?

      • I resent your comment about implying asian guy would be something something. But he sure did the right thing by bolting to protect his family.

  25. This is pretty much a worst nightmare situation… More bad guys than most of us carry ammo for, and they can definitely outrun an SUV.

    Would a muzzle pressed up against the glass persuade the bikers to back off in the beginning? Maybe?

    Later on, would a few shots through the broken glass into the guy bashing through his window persuade the rest of them to back off? Maybe?

    Even with the angry mob mentality it’s possible that a gun could have changed how this ended… We’ll never know.

  26. I am a motorcyclist, and while i most vehemently DO NOT condone the beating or the harassment, I have every confidence that this is not the whole story. I have been a party to TOO MANY cagers that thought they could met out a little discipline or parental guidance with their vehicle. I have had friends both killed and seriously injured by people who thought they would just teach the motorcyclist a little lesson in humility – only to get off with the tired defense, “honestly judge, I didn’t even see him”. I can only imagine that some such thing occurred here, because it is the ONLY thing i can imagine that would move someone to act in this way towards another driver.

    With that said, I await further details.

    • If it were one or two bikers… Maybe… But this guy would have to be totally insane or completely stupid (or both!) to “discipline” such a large group of bikers, especially with his wife and baby in the car.

      It’s always possible he started it, I’m not discounting that possibility. But in this case I’d be more inclined to believe that a reckless group of bikers with attitudes let their “fun” get way out of hand.

      • I’m not making any claims about who is a fault. But honestly, you’ve never encountered anyone that stupid in an SUV…really?

        • No doubt there are dic*head SUV drivers all over. And the SUV driver in this case may have been one.

          That said, there was dic*headed-ness to the 20th power on display with the bikers (with many lacking plates and common sense). I mean, they all STOPPED in the middle of a highway! WTF?

        • Here is some friendly advice, it’s free, and worth that. Remember everyone on the road is out there to kill you. With that in mind, drive accordingly.

  27. The bikers clearly thought they owned the road. This is typical motorcycle gang behavior. If you are outnumbered 100:1 against a motorcycle gang, the first rule is to avoid confrontation. Second, it very much looks like the MC gang started the confrontation. Many stunts are easier to perform from a stopped motorcycle. The bikers stopped the RR to do a stunt. They don’t care, they *own* the road. Just let them have it for a few minutes, while you dial 911.

    If you start something against that many bikes, with that many skilled riders, you’ll either have to kill someone under dubious circumstances or receive an ass-kicking. You may get your ass kicked or killed even if you do defend yourself. It’s unlikely the MC gang will back down. Regardless of the start of the incident, you’ve just literally attacked a mob. Not smart.

    Self defense tip: back down from a gang of 100 plus bikers.

        • I utterly disagree with the “just stop and let them do what they want” concept IF you can break free, which the guy did. He committed an utter fail, though, by not keeping up his evasive driving maneuvers aggressively until he crossed paths with a cop car. A guy’s got to go one way or the other. There’s no middle path.

          The whole thing was disgusting. In my view that was more “terrorism” than I ‘d want in my city. Rides like that pick up a PD tail almost immediately here, metro Philadelphia. New York City? That many minutes, that many bikers, that many miles, and no cops? Wall Street and Midtown are covered with video surveillance absolutely non-stop. The major highways? Nada? Dollars to donuts some cops saw the action and said “I ain’t stoppin’ that alone.”

    • +1….It’s hard to criticize the drivers situational awareness here. Obviously he was scared out his head. Who wouldn’t be. But clearly at least trying to work it out was the best course.

  28. My rough estimate is that there were at least 50 riders on cycles. Assuming they were all “together”, that is an extremely dangerous situation for anyone they target. Being outnumbered 50 to 1 is bordering on hopeless, which is what those chicken-sh!ts were counting on.

    It was quite clear that the cycles laid a trap for the Rover. They occupied multiple positions in all lanes and then stopped aggressively for no reason whatsoever. Even worse, several riders then converged on the Rover. That is a mob attack and any reasonable person would assume the mob intended great harm to the family. Further, the threat was imminent. That’s a green light to use deadly force and the driver was wise to drive through the mob.

    Nevertheless, surrender is not an option. Stay on the freeway and start swerving back and forth to take out anyone on a cycle who approaches. If the car stops due to mechanical failure (from initially running over the cycles), you get out and take up the best defensive position possible. Then prepare to stop as many attackers as possible.

    By the way that is one of those situations where it is really handy if your spouse is armed as well. And that is why I almost always have at least 42 rounds of ammunition. Plus, these days, I usually have my pistol caliber carbine with 70+ rounds of ammunition as well. That would be quite effective in that situation.

    • Surrender can be a fantastic option. Just ask any wife you know, and any husband you know who ain’t sleeping on a couch.

    • Three tons of Range Rover will stop any attack by 50 bikers because like all mobs they run away like little girls when you fight back. How many of them would have continued to attack the monster after four or five of the toughest guys are laying bleeding on the road? They would be off looking for easier prey in a heartbeat..

      • Plus, can you imagine the chain reaction? You would only have to lay out three or four of the bikes then all the riders flying up behind them would suddenly be flying without the benefit of handle bars, tires, engine, or brakes.

  29. Tough call as you don’t know who or how,one thing for sure ,those guys are carrying and if my wife and kid are in the car,’I sorry’ goes alongway no matter who is at fault!

  30. The West Side Highway is an INCREDIBLY busy highway, with moderately heavy to very heavy traffic 24/7. There is NO EXCUSE on either party’s part to create a stoppage in the traffic lanes. If there was a fender bender, you motion for your counter-party to pull over onto the shoulder. Short of that, you take down a license plate number and work the legal system. If the aggrieved biker won’t let you pull over, you get outta Dodge any way you can.

    This could have been me. I travel the WSH all the time with my small kids in my SUV and being born and raised here I know the chances that this biker group was made up of low life thugs and there would be no reasoning with them is a solid 90%. So I would have avoided these guys at all costs – slow down, let them pass, maybe even plan alternate route. Once the die is cast, and the bikers trap you on the roadway and approach your vehicle on foot, you have no alternative to escape any way you can.

  31. Another one of those situations in which the primary function of the police appears to be not “to serve and protect,” but “to clean up the mess” after they’ve failed to serve and protect.

    • The police’s job is not to protect, it is to enforce the law. Protection is just an extra thing they do, but not regularly.

  32. I’d like a follow-up post about this story asking whether or not you’d help if you were in another car at that red light? Considering it’s a range rover, and a gang of bikers, I don’t think I’d exactly rush to the guys aid. I’d probably assume it was some drug deal gone bad and just get out of there.

  33. It shoulda been a defensive Range Rover use. I mean really, if that truck is not enough to protect yourself…..
    The bikes (although many) are like bringing a knife to a gun fight. Or should been.

    And, five minutes and not a cop in sight, sheesh.

  34. I am a motorcycle rider. I don’t care what happened before the biker cut off, and break checked that Range Rover, but everything I saw that driver do afterwards was justifiable, and is pretty much what I would have done with my family or any family in the car.
    A shame we have to even have to “debate” this.
    I would not have pulled a gun, I would have driven over as many of those bikers that attempted to stop me as I needed to, to get my family to safety. If my vehicle was damaged to the point I couldn’t move, well you know what was next.
    Very sad and stupid chain of events.

  35. “When a biker walked toward the car, the Rover driver floored it, smashing into several bikes and riders. ”

    Don’t run over bikers and you won’t have a problem.

    Should have been a DGU? Yeah. I’ll take a gun to defend myself from insane Rover drivers, running over my friends and their motorcycles.

    • NY PC 135.10 Unlawful imprisonment in the first degree.
      “A person is guilty of unlawful imprisonment in the first degree when
      he restrains another person under circumstances which expose the latter
      to a risk of serious physical injury.
      Unlawful imprisonment in the first degree is a class E felony.”

      “Restrain” means to restrict a person`s movements intentionally and
      unlawfully in such manner as to interfere substantially with his liberty
      by moving him from one place to another, or by confining him either in
      the place where the restriction commences or in a place to which he has
      been moved, without consent and with knowledge that the restriction is
      unlawful. A person is so moved or confined “without consent” when such
      is accomplished by (a) physical force, intimidation or deception, or (b)
      any means whatever, including acquiescence of the victim, if he is a
      child less than sixteen years old or an incompetent person and the
      parent, guardian or other person or institution having lawful control or
      custody of him has not acquiesced in the movement or confinement.”

      Don’t commit felonies and you wont get run over by SUV drivers….

    • I don’t know what led up to it, and there’s no use in speculating. But at the point where the SUV driver hit the gas, he had every right to do what was necessary to escape.

      And the chase afterward? Generally I’m live and let live, and I’ll try to defuse the situation as much as possible. But any bikers try to box me in or run me off the road after that first threat, they’re in for a harsh lesson in the laws of physics. And I wouldn’t give up my advantage by driving into city traffic either, not if I could help it.

      Of course, I’d rather apologize and have peace…if the other guy will accept it. Again, we don’t know what led up to the incident. If it had been me in the vehicle, I would have done everything I could to avoid confrontation to begin with.

      If it becomes some dickhead’s badge of honor to chase down and threaten me and mine, then mofo’er, it is ON, and I will…not…lose.

  36. Not sure of the whole story here, but I have had bike gangs like this surround my car before and get within inches of the car and just sit there waiting for me to do something. I just sat there with my cruise control on hoping the two idiots in front of me didn’t start brake checking me. I may not own motorcycles but I do really like them. When motorcyclist do crazy stuff eventually you will get a reaction from someone who is pissed off and you are bound to have something bad happen.

    Be courteous to MC riders and they should be doing the same thing so we can all enjoy a nice drive on the weekend.

    • “Be courteous to MC riders and they should be doing the same thing”

      And when I show interest in a nice woman, she should show interest in me. Unfortunately, women and MC riders rarely reciprocate my kindness. By rarely, I mean pretty much never 🙁

  37. I wonder what the laws are concerning mounting cow catchers on the front of your vehicle? Maybe spinny blades on the wheels.

  38. Yeah, it should have been a DGU. Silly biker dudes with no appreciation of basic physics…or proper manners,…or general civilized behavior. If they were to pull that kind of shit on me, they’d have a hell of a bill to pay with the devil.

    Lo, though I walk trough the valley of the shadow of death, no evil shall fall upon me me, for I am the evillest son of a bitch in the valley.

    I don’t say this lightly as I’m an old time biker. Respect is a two way street. Respect is given as a matter of basic courtesy, but if one goes beyond a certain point of decorum and one transgresses age old boundaries, well then, don’t come crying to me if you’re brought up short. You have the freedom to be free. You don’t have the freedom to be an asshole and expect not to get called on it. Live and let live is a pretty good way to roll most of the time. That said, don’t fuck with me and I won’t fuck with you. It’s just that simple. But when jackasses get all stupid and blood simple because they were being blood-simple jackasses, then there is a problem that they likely won’t be able to reach a reasonable and rational solution that will satisfy all parties.

    If you’re being a jerk, and there are several of you, and you and your buds start pounding your helmets on my vehicle and in such a manner that you pose a grievous threat to me, and especially to my family, well, may God have mercy on your soul, because I sure as Hell won’t.

  39. First off, I ride. Pretty much every day, year ’round. I live in Connecticut, and I was back on my bike 2 days after last years megablizzard. Yeah im a hero like that. So I think I can speak with a bit of knowledge on this incident. For starters, them idiots aint bikers. Them are called squids. Myself, although those that dont know me would call me a biker, I prefer motorcyclists. Motorcyclists despise squids. They are only out on the road from around June thru say, around now..September..acting like total morons and making a menace of themselves. I was almost involved in an incident this summer with a small pack of squids. Going down a 2 lane road, a group coming the other way was intending to cross in front of me. The first one began to, then thought better of it. I braked hard and swerved a bit, as the remaining squids neatly placed all if their sport bikes into one neat pile in the road. This typicaly happens numerous times a year with squids. My best guess on the incident this article concerns would be that a mass convergence of squids caused them to believe they had total control of the highway and were free to ride as poorly and stupidly as they pleased. My guess would be that the driver unintentionally merged into the mob of squids, causing the squids to become upset. I’ve seen that happen before. The proper thing to do is to signal the driver to please pull ahead of the group, while the group slows and makes room for him to do so. But not with this pack of a**holes. No. They now feel they have been disrespected, so they got mad. And one of them decided to act especially stupid. I would guess he doesnt have a really good grasp of physics or automotive technology. My guess would also be that there is one more aspect to this situation, but that would touch on the subject that we dare not mention. So yeah, theres my take on the incident. Me? I woulda needed a good hose down and some body work done on my Range Rover.

    • My thoughts on the matter exactly. When they had me stopped in traffic I would have put it in reverse and back over them out of there.

    • HollywoodStuntz, the group responsible, is almost entirely comprised of urban youts.

      I’ve broached the subject.

  40. BOTH PARTIES HAD JUSTIFIABLE REASONS FOR A DGU.

    Way too much one sided biased here. The SUV driver is guilty of assault with a deadly weapon and repeated homicidal tendencies. The bikers are guilty of harassment, intimidation, and assault, in addition to (in this case) acting like assholes. Not all riders are assholes, despite what cage-drivers may wrongfully assume when they split lanes or ride aggressively(proactive defensive driving/riding) in a manner that only bikes are allowed to do.

    • Mack, you said; ” in a manner that only bikes are allowed to do.” We all follow the same set of rules of the road. “Bikes” have no special dispensation, neither by custom nor any rule of law. Do you read me 5 x 5 on that?

    • Your high. When a mob of men are trying to pull you out of your truck running them over to escape is a valid use of force.

    • From what I can see in the video, this started with one biker trying to “teach a guy a lesson” by brake checking the SUV driver. When his brake check went bad and he was rear-ended, the riders decided they would kidnap the SUV driver (and his family) by blocking THE ENTIRE HIGHWAY and surrounding his vehicle!

      Even if something happened before the bikers trapped him, they are responsible for initiating the aggression seen on the video. If they witnessed a crime, it was their responsibility pull over and call the police to report a hit-and-run (or whatever might have happened). Once they cut him off and trapped him, they crossed the line. Lucky none of them are dead.

    • Not really.
      The SUV driver had every right to defend himself and his family.
      These were not your everyday having fun motorcycle riders enjoying
      the fresh air they were GenerationSelf-entitled thinking they could do what
      they want on the road.

      Go back to your Kool-aid Mack.

  42. These guys aren’t “bikers”. They went wilding on two wheels. You want to hit the open road and share it with me, God Bless You. You want to do the road equivalent of flash mobbing my house, you assume the risk that I will act in sell-defense.

  43. Ron White was wrong. You can fix stupid. It just generally involves stupid getting out of hand and getting a well deserved .40 hole in his head.

  44. It always fails to amaze me how hot-head motorcycle riders (and bicyclist) think there 450lb cycle (or 20-lb bike) somehow enables them to overcome the laws of physics and allows them to challenge a 5,000 vehicle.

  45. Just two points I’d like to make here, and I don’t think either of these has been mentioned yet in exactly this way… (albeit I have seen some that almost get there).

    First, let me say that I am aware of the exact laws in my state *only*, so that’s what I have to go by. I see that the relevant statute for NY was quoted by someone, referring to the question of whether or not forcing the SUV driver to stop was a crime… so, of course, your mileage may vary. If it sounds silly that I would discuss this situation relating to the laws of my state and not NY, well, it’s not a coincidence I live in the state I do— I chose it in large part because the rationality of your own state’s laws have a LOT of bearing on your general quality of life.

    Now, the two things I would like to point out are ones that some posters seem somewhat confused about: namely, “what happened before” the camera went on; and when the driver would have been justified in using deadly force.

    The laws are very clear (at least where I am) on these exact points. First, “what happened before” matters not a bit. Each encounter is its own animal; its own separate case. If I were to walk up to you, initiate a violent confrontation, assault you and your friends, shoot you in the leg, what-have-you, and then I start fleeing and turn my camera on… in the eyes of the law, one confrontation (and series of crimes) has ended. If you chase me with an eye towards doing me harm, you are initiating an ENTIRELY NEW confrontation, one in which YOU are the aggressor. In some jurisdictions, with a more-or-less continuous encounter, they actually spell out specifically what needs to happen for you to “regain innocence”, or some similar phrase. Remember the recently-posted video of the jewelry-store robbery in Nice? The instant those would-be robbers ran off, they were in the clear– the store owner who chased and shot at them is a simple murderer, nothing more. There is no allowance for vengeance, revenge, or retribution in the law. In fact, that’s exactly what bothered me in that otherwise-admirable collection of videos of DGUs in convenience stores— many of those defenders continued to shoot after it was clear the perpetrators were fleeing. Now, certainly I am on their side, philosophically speaking— I completely understand that it would be very difficult to keep your cool and stop shooting at precisely the right time. If this is ever your situation, however, when it’s time to ‘splain your actions, you’d damned well better claim that you thought the original encounter was continuing, and they were not fleeing at all, but running away in a manner consistent with a continued attack (running to get more weapons, say). Otherwise you’re just a murderer— the fact that the man you murdered just committed a robbery (or was trying to) will be pretty irrelevant in YOUR court case.

    Keep in mind that all killing, in the eyes of the law, is still homicide— that’s why the legal definition of a good shoot is “justifiable” homicide. The law says all killing is murder— justification just means that your reason for committing murder was so good as to remove your legal culpability for it.

    Now, on to point 2— when was the driver justified in using deadly force? Well, in NY, I’m not sure… but in my state, the threshold for using deadly force is much lower when you are in a car than in your own home. I find this a very interesting point. In my state, you may THREATEN, but NOT USE, deadly force to prevent or stop trespassing— so if someone is in your home, or about to enter it, you may tell them you’re going to shoot them, show them the weapon, point it at them, etc. But you can *not* shoot them yet, even if they refuse to leave— they must additionally threaten your safety (death or serious bodily harm is the language), before you are justified in actually using the deadly force you may threaten. An interesting distinction, but important. When you are in a car (also property, of course, and therefore also capable of being trespassed upon), the law recognizes that you do not have the same kind of distance or set of options you presumably would in the home. Which is to say, if someone kicks in your door at home, you are not yet out of options… in a car, I think we can all agree that if someone opens the door, or even reaches into your car (initiating trespass) you do not have the kind of time or possibility for retreat you do at home. Just like you do not have to wait until you’re actually being beaten down to use deadly force— the law here says that if a “reasonable person” in your situation would have believed (as you did) that the death-or-injury was likely and imminent, you’re authorized— in a car the very act of opening your door, attempting to, or reaching into the car constitutes having already reached the standard. In other words, it is codified into the law that any reasonable person would believe that doing those things indicates that your death or serious injury IS the intent of the trespasser, and you do not have to wait to see which way the wind blows before you act.

    I’m not trying to say anything about what this guy did or should have done; nor am I commenting on the laws of NY… I’m just speaking to what I know. I think this incident illustrates, though, that it’s worth reading the laws of your state and locality— the confusion shown by some parties, and the back-and-forth on who was right and wrong seems to suggest that a lot of us could use to brush up on EXACTLY what is justified and not, where WE are, so that if these messy, real-world situations come upon us, we are clear on who is right, who is wrong, what is legal, and therefore better able to choose which course of action is right for US.

    I would hate to see any of the AI end up in some jackpot situation because they *thought* this-or-that was justified… and find later that they had it wrong.

  46. Ah yes, I remember the days well when I was 18 and immortal, and a cycle jock.
    But I never did anything as stupid as challenging a car. That’s what these young immortals on two wheels were doing. If you on your bike want to try and intimidate me in my car…..
    oh ya, it’s go time! If you do it when I’m with my wife and child, I will show you the fatal fallacy of believing you’re immortal.

    Anyone defending the belligerent actions of this mob of rice rats probably should be relegated to using only public transportation for the rest of their life. Let’s cut through the crap. This was an attempted mob lynching. A lynch mob in 2013, that’s what you are thoughtlessly trying to defend? They didn’t have a rope handy, so they beat and stabbed him instead,…in front of his wife and child. So please, if it’s not too much trouble, we would kindly ask that you go fuck yourself. In America, we don’t cheer for criminal lynch mobs, and the infantile two wrongs make a right is so stupid even stupid people don’t believe it.
    That was sure quick thinking of the photojournalist to stop filming just as they were about to beat and stab that guy, on a public street, in broad daylight, in front of dozens of witnesses, and feeling perfectly entitled to doing it. This is delinquent third-world thinking of the most barbarous kind. Defend that?

    Helpful tip: Adolescence is considered a phase, not a permanent state being. Grow up!

    • While reading about it, I found out the bikers were black and latinos. Not sure about that. But the biker who bashes the driver window with a helmet at end of video appears to be black (could be latino too).

  47. Driver should have been hitting any and all dumbass bikers who got near his car. Bikes are worthless. After a few go down, the rest will learn their lesson and stop the attack. Then, if the car must stop and any bikers are still around, blast the losers as they approach the vehicle.

  48. Do you mean BIKES are worthless or BIKERS are worthless? Either statement is wrong. Motorcycles are a great form of transportation that for some reason are looked at more as toys in the US than the rest of the world. Thats kind of like saying vans are useless. Just different modes of transportation. If you mean BIKERS (motorcyclists) are useless, thats like saying people who drive say, pick ups are useless. However I will agree that idiotic thugs are useless.

    • I think you missed his point entirely, Jim. It really looks like he meant in regards to a fight/fire fight. You tap a bike and it is gone. An SUV? Not so much.

  49. My only complaint and comment is its too bad this didn’t happen in Ohio… What a joke.

  50. If anyone would bother to checkout the bikers and other biker blog sites the incident started because the SUV was initially in the far left lane and when the bikers came up on them from behind SUV attempted to merge right to allow the bikers to pass by and SUV almost hit one of the bikers. In turn most in the biker gang began driving ahead, up to and around the SUV harassing it and one dumbass as seen in video hit his brakes hard while right in front of SUV and they hit each other, starting the actual attempted assault which turned into a assault.
    First punishment is that annual or bi-annual or monthly ride that group did is now banned for life by the city and I imagine the FBI will be getting involved since the incident involved a members only group or gang which basically terrorized citizens.
    These a-holes give a bad name to bikers. I once saw a guy in a old suburban or international maybe almost swerve right into a pair of Outlaws back when they were still visible here in the midwest and they pulled up beside him and motioned to slow down next time and drove on. Yes a certain Hell’s Angel or whatever biker gang member may have taken some traffic incident too far at some time more than once, but this behavior we see in this video is typical of today’s younger gens being taken over by mob mentality.

    • +1, My misspent youth involved doing lots of dumb sh!t on crotch rockets. I still ride my 2000 ZX9R with friends, but we sure as hell aren’t doing wheelies and stoppies in traffic or on the freeway. I see kids doing stunts like this all the time in Tampa/St. Pete. They not only endanger themselves with their asshattery, they endanger everyone else on the road.

      Everyone always says to watch out for motorcycles, and as someone who has been riding for 17 years I agree, but bikers need to watch out too. The behavior of these morons makes all of us look like a bunch of fools. As to “it should have been a DGU”, absolutely. The minute someone tried to bash my window with their helmet with my family in the car, they’d have been perforated.

  51. I very strongly object to the tone implicit in the “it should have been a DGU” headline.
    Regardless of who was at fault, what we now have as the final result: some smashed up motorcycles and some bruises and cuts. Nobody got shot, nobody died. Now the judicial system takes over. Why are so many people talking up the need for 30-round mags for this? Don’t you get it? Nobody died here, and that’s a far better outcome than lots of people dying! Jeez.

    • Don’t you get it? A family, including children were surrounded and attacked by a mob. PEOPLE SHOULD HAVE DIED! They earned their death. Will the next people they decide to terrorise get off so lucky?

      • Oh, okay, I see. So you’re under the impression that the penalty for abhorrent, thuggish, antisocial, and dangerous mob behaviour is instant death, especially since ‘family’ (and think of the children!). And this penalty gets to be applied by anyone, right? Or do they need your approval first?

        • So, if someone attacks your family where do you draw the line before you use deadly force? After the first kid is killed?

          I pre approve anybody being attacked by a mob to use whatever option they deem needed. Don’t wait for weapons free from me. Unless you’re the kind that needs approval before acting.

        • jr: I think you misssed the point and failed to pay attention to what actually happened. The cycle-jerks decided to pick a fight.

          Based on the information in the post above, the SUV driver pulled over to let the group pass him. Evidently, he came close to one or more of the group’s riders, who were trying to pass him on the right. He neither made contact with, nor overtly threatened anyone. In his case, he tried to be a courteous driver, and misjudged the other traffic around him. One might even point out that, with 50+ riders around him, his mistake is quite understandable.

          Rather than chaulking it up to a an honest mistake, one cycle-jerk cut the SUV off and brake checked him. The rider misjudged (or maybe not…) the stopping capability of the SUV, and minor contact was made. Once the idiot advanced on the SUV and the rest of the mob closed in, the SUV driver had a reasonable fear for the safety of everyone in his car. Once they mob moved in, he was absolutely justified to react in a way that prevented serious injury or death to himself and his family.

          The absolute best option, given the situation, actors, and tempers involved to was to get the heck out of Dodge. He wisely chose that option, not seriously injuring or killing anyone on the way. When the mob advanced again, they signaled a continuing assault and even escalated by attempting to enter the vehicle and assault it. At that point, the SUV driver was perfectly within the rules defend himself by any means necessary. Disparity of force is the key here – mob vs. a guy and his family.

          Again, his best option is to flee. He was, at this time, justified to cause injury or death to anyone in the mob who advanced on his position. He avoided intentionally injuring anyone. His next stop SHOULD have been a police station. If he was armed, he would have been justified in threating the advancing mob to prevent serious injury or death of himself of his family.

          Once he was stopped, and the mob broke the windows to his vehicle, the threat of injury was imminent, and he should have had the option of permanently disabiling the attackers. He didn’t have that option. The result? The risk of serious injury or death was realized – he was beaten and stabbed by a bunch of immature idiots. The only reason the SUV driver is still alive is luck and good EMS response.

    • Your hindsight is 20/20, and you’re awfully brave with someone else’s family. You only know no one was killed after the fact. Do you think the SUV driver was certain he and his family were not going to be killed as several men smashed his windows attempting to get at them? Once they physically attacked the SUV, with a family inside, they took their lives into their hands. Shooting all the attackers would have been justified.

      • Dang it. You guys have misunderstood my point, so let me clarify.
        From the very limited information we have from the video (which is not much more than what the ‘combatants’ saw, minus the adrenaline), we see a few times where maybe DGU is justified.
        Well, it didn’t happen, and it ended better than if there were DGU because of the fact that it didn’t happen.
        What the headline seems to suggest is that it *should* have happened. Well, that headline was written with hindsight! So how can you take an outcome that was non-fatal and advocate that it should have been fatal instead?
        I’m not “hindsighting” it, and I’m not being brave with another’s family. I didn’t say that this wouldn’t have been an appropriate DGU situation. What I’m saying, again, is that NOW that we know of the “favorable” outcome, after the fact, we should not be all “should’a shot ’em” and thus push for a vigilante death squad made up of random citizens (or immigrants or whomever happens to be armed) that get angry or scared or whatever in order to kill the whole group of bikers along with anybody nearby or in adjacent buildings or surrounding cars in some sort of apocalyptic adrenaline-fueled CGI-rendered “look-at-me-I-can-take-out-up-to-72-people-with-my-gun-haha” scenario.
        Looks like there were some bad judgment calls there, somehow nobody died, and now that’s that (again, until criminal justice and judicial system sorts things out like a civilized society).
        Just chill, that’s all.

        • Legally armed citizens don’t engage in shooting up the whole neighberhood. If records of past shootings are anything to go buy the surrounding innocents would have been safer with a ccw citizen responding to the bikers than with NYPD’s finest.

          At the moment that the bikers were using their helmets and knives as offensive weapons and they tried to board the vehicle with wife and kids in it they became legitimate targets for deadly force. The legal system could just as easily sort the aftermath of the dgu out and there would have been a couple less aggressive and dangerous predators on the lose.

        • ” So how can you take an outcome that was non-fatal and advocate that it should have been fatal instead?”

          I can easily. It’s called the Use of Force Doctrine. According to the UOF Doctrine, Use of Deadly force is not justified merely by the outcome of what happened but by what went on in the mind of the driver. What would go on in the mind of NY REASONABLE PERSON. The Reasonable Person Doctrine. He would have been in fear of GREAT BODILY HARM of himself and his family. I can also ask, “how do you know his family wasn’t harmed”. I can tell you they were harmed from the fear caused by the Disparaging Level of Force exerted by the biker gang. That family was in fear for ist life. Therefore the use of Deadly Force was necessary, just not implemented. STATE LAW OR NO SATE LAW, THIS FATHER WAS RESPONSIBLE FOR THE PROTECTION OF HIS FAMILY BY WHATEVER MEANS NECESSARY.

        • OK, one last thing here, and that’s an analogy.
          Remember the Cold War?
          Well, to quote your understanding of the “Use of Force Doctrine”, you say that it –
          …”is not justified merely by the outcome of what happened but by what went on in the mind of the driver… He would have been in fear of GREAT BODILY HARM of himself and his family… / in fear for ist life. Therefore the use of Deadly Force was necessary, just not implemented.”

          I’m gonna request that you read this article about Stanislav Petrov. It is quite likely that you are alive today because of his ability to Chill For A Moment Even When In Fear Of Great Bodily Harm To Himself And His Family And His Whole Country. Here it is:
          http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/09/the-man-who-saved-the-world-by-doing-absolutely-nothing/280050/
          … just because you may be able to JUSTIFY use of deadly force doesn’t necessarily mean that you should go right on ahead and USE said deadly force. George Zimmerman, for example. Or Nagasaki. Or Operation Ranch Hand, for that matter. Jeez.

        • Interesting article. I’d say it could be used to make a case for both sides in this little dispute — that all-important “gut feeling” based on the totality of what your senses and your intellect are telling you.

          In this case, hindsight emphatically does say this should have been a DGU. The bikers chased, attacked, and brutally beat a defenseless person — who could very well have died. That person had every right to defend himself by lethal force.

          It’s the best outcome simply because no one died? This is the same argument that the gun prohibitionists use against gun owners all the time. Tell that to the guy who was beaten within an inch of his life and couldn’t do anything about it. It sure wasn’t the best outcome for him — or for his family.

          The best outcome is the one in which the unlawful aggressor fails. Death isn’t necessary, but as JWM said, if it had happened, these bike-riding jackholes would have fully earned it.

    • Scum, is what they appear to be. Horrid, irresponsible, reckless, antisocial scum.
      I’m a motorcyclist (unless it rains…) and I know that it’s actions by guys like these that ruin a lot of things for the rest of us.

  53. Those bikers were thugs and vigilantes.
    This case demonstrates exactly why I never go ANYWHERE with out my side arm, and I never drive ANYWHERE without extra toys that are REAL CROWD PLEASERS.
    Too bad driver was in a state that did not recognize his God-given Right to Self-defense by whatever means necessary.

    • One other Doctrine would apply here and that is the CASTLE DOCTRINE. It apply for you while you are in your car. The second the tugs tried to breach the door or windows would have immediately be grounds for deadly force. If the bikers wanted to to anything on the legal side of the law that would have only call the police and follow the driver from a distance. If an other vehicles or pedestrians had been hit, the biker gang would have been at fault for cause the chase. That’s why fewer police departments will get into high speed chases, because of the potential for bystanders to get injured.

  54. So I haven’t seen any of the pro biker comments above address why they think it is alright to ride without license plates, creating an illegal roadblock, inciting and initiating violence against a stopped vehicle? All of which are illegal in any state. Any of the commenters above defending the bikers care to answer these facts?

Comments are closed.