One Video Encapsulates Everything Wrong With NYC Street Culture


Two banes of New York City streets — aggressive dirt bikers using the road as a personal racetrack, and SUV drivers using their vehicles as weapons — collide in this horrific video making the rounds today.

Yesterday at about 1:30 p.m., Alexian Lien, 33, was driving a Range Rover north on the West Side Highway near 125th Street with his wife and 5-month old daughter as passengers, according to reports in the Post and Daily News. About 20 seconds into the video, group of motorcycle and dirt bike riders surround the SUV in the center lane, and a motorbike rider appears to hit the brakes and get into a fender-bender with Lien’s vehicle.

Lien and the group of motorbike riders around him came to a stop. Surrounded, Lien then hit the accelerator (at about 50 seconds into the video), running over at least three motorcycles and striking one man, breaking his leg, according to NYPD. The video shows the group of motorbike riders chasing Lien, exiting the highway at 178th Street in Washington Heights. When Lien reaches traffic stopped at a red light at Wadsworth Avenue (after the six-minute mark), the motorbike riders dismount, and one man uses his helmet to smash Lien’s window.

The video cuts off at this point, but police say the men beat up Lien, who went to Columbia University Medical Center, where he received stitches and was released. The Daily News reports that NYPD has not made any arrests, but is still investigating.

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  • nst

    This shit should not be allowed to go down on a block by block basis. These assholes in your neighborhood you police them or bury them. No passes.

  • Jacob Johnson

    if some of the bikers had guns, he’s outnumbered, outgunned, and both he and his family and innocent bystanders would all be dead. it wouldn’t be defense, it would be a massacre.

  • Limbo romp

    This dude , m.facebook(dot)com/Jmeezee?id=100001217253419&_rdr , was one of the many bikers.

  • Joe R.

    I’m a big proponent of second Amendment rights but guns only are useful if your opponent doesn’t have them, or if you have the element of surprise (i.e. a sniper rifle being used well out of visual range). It’s probably a given a good percentage of these bikers were armed. It just goes with the territory. All the SUV driver would have accomplished if he had a gun was to get himself and his family killed. There are lots of defensive situations where a gun might be useful but this isn’t one of them.

  • Captain Capitalism

    Other news outlets are quoting the police as saying he did exactly that: he called them, and only sped off like that and striking the 3 bikes after they started attacking his vehicle (not shown in the video). Early in the video one of the bikers clearly pulls a Swoop & Squat, forcing the SUV to hit him lightly; a scamming tactic. NYPD Commissioner is saying the SUV driver likely won’t be charged with anything. The thugs on 2 wheels (not representative of all bikers, to be sure) in this incident are the ones in the wrong every which way.

  • Captain Capitalism

    Tell us something…if you were being pulled from your car by a motorcycle mob, AND you had a gun that you could use, are you trying to tell us you wouldn’t use it to protect yourself, your wife, and your child? As you were being knifed and beaten as this driver was, possibly to death (you don’t know), you would simply tow the liberal line and keep trying to reason with your attackers, instead of using the scientifically proven #1 method of both stopping a violent crime and surviving it with little or no injury? (“Point Blank”, by Dr. Gary Kleck…a card-carrying member of only one group, the ACLU)

    Please tell us that with a straight face.

    No, guns don’t miraculously solve problems. But used by responsible law-abiding citizens, they help stop hundreds of thousands of violent crimes each and every year in America — without a shot ever being fired in nearly all instances (Kleck).

  • Captain Capitalism

    This “Dodge City” scare tactic has been brought up time & again by the anti-2nd Amendment crowd, and it never bears out. The moment a determined, law-abiding citizen brandishes a gun in self-defense, in overwhelming numbers these crimes are stopped cold and the victim vastly increases the chance of surviving the attack without injury. Don’t take my word for it, or the NRA’s, or the anti-gun crowd’s either: take the word of a scientist whose peer-reviewed work proves it (Dr. Gary Kleck).

  • Andres Dee

    This all must be happening because Commissioner Ray Kelly is all that stands between us and the mob, but Mayor De Blasio replaced him with Ron Kuby. Gosh, I should have listened to the warnings from John Cats.

  • Andres Dee

    DNFTT

  • Captain Capitalism

    What happens when they don’t pass, but swarm and surround you after pulling a Swoop & Squat?

    And if that’s the case about the NYPD (you’re correct), then your self-defense is your own responsibility and you should be prepared for it. Somehow I doubt the liberal propaganda of ‘reasoning with (or submitting to) your attacker’ would’ve helped the SUV driver as the bikers were smashing his window, pulling him from the vehicle, beating him, and cutting him.

    Full 2nd Amendment rights, for all law-abiding New Yorkers, now.

  • Captain Capitalism

    From other news outlets: he had already called the police before they swarmed & stopped his SUV. There’s evidence that before the video, they started assaulting his vehicle with their helmets. Then you add in the deliberate Swoop & Squat, surrounding, more bikers walking over…yeah, with my wife and child in the car I’d have run them over to get away until the police could arrive too, no way I’m letting them get near me again. The police commissioner has been quoted as saying the SUV driver likely won’t be charged with anything, and I’m happy to hear it.

  • carma

    wrong stephen miller, this was not two wrongs. i only see one wrong in the motorcycles and dirt bikers provoking the situation. Lien was not in any wrong of using the range rover as a weapon as it was clearly self defense. if a bunch of thugs start attacking your vehicle and family, are you simply going to wait for the cops to show up? no, you get the hell out of there and if that means using your vehicle as a weapon, you do so.

    i would have rammed my way through if i was in the situation.

  • Anonymous

    Id have thought when being passed by a bunch of smaller vehicles, the thing to do would be to keep your speed and direction consistent, NOT slow down.

  • Anonymous

    Full 2nd Amendment rights, for all law-abiding New Yorkers, now.

    The one saving grace is that nobody died. Does that bother you? Because that’s what you’re suggesting. The bikers could’ve had guns too! And then what. A shoot-out?

  • Ari

    If the motorcyclists did attack the driver’s SUV in the beginning (it’s unclear) then it’s self defense.

    No one has mentioned how LUCKY the driver is to be alive. With a mob mentality, it could have ended much worse.

    Note to self: if I get in a situation like that, I WON’T get off the highway.

  • To say NYPD doesn’t have the manpower is utterly ridiculous. Should we also give up on stopping terrorist attacks because we don’t have the manpower? Protecting ordinary citizens like this SUV driver and his family is the NYPD’s job. That is what we pay them for. Do your job, NYPD, and stop these a-holes before something like this happens.

    This video encapsulates everything wrong with NYPD’s traffic enforcement culture. I’ve been there more than once as these illegal parades of thugs on unregistered and unlicensed dirt bikes swarm the streets, both on foot and in a car, and it is scary as hell either way. Other commenters are right. Given NYPD’s lack of enforcement, best thing to do is to come to a complete stop and let them pass. Even so, many of them intentionally come dangerously close to cars, bicycles, and pedestrians in their path, running red lights and failing to yield all along the way.

  • I’ve been there more than once as these illegal parades of thugs on unregistered and unlicensed dirt bikes swarm the streets, both on foot and in a car, and it is scary as hell either way. Next time you witness one of these events, everyone here should immediately call 911 and report these scumbags. Maybe with enough calls, NYPD will realize what a danger they are to the average person on the street and do something about it. I can’t imagine the NYPD would fail to confront a swarm of terrorists for lack of manpower or fear of retribution. Why should this be any different?

  • Joe Enoch

    I agree. I don’t see how the SUV driver could have reacted any differently, especially with his family in the car. That confrontation was going to have the same ending whether it was on the West Side Highway or later after he rammed a few. I would have done the same thing to try and get out of there. His only mistake was exiting the highway.

  • Anonymous

    So you’d prefer a lot of dead people. I bet a few of the bikers were strapped. Imagine if he pulled out a gun and a shoot out entailed. Suppose he did kill one of his attackers. He still was unable to get away. All it’d mean is that they would’ve killed him for sure when they got him. Instead of just beating him silly.

  • Anonymous

    Dodge City scare tactic? Wasn’t he just accurately describing the hypothetical? It’s 1 (wife and child, ain’t fighting) v. 200. A hand gun wouldn’t save you. You think those macho guys would all back away. I’m sure one of them would think they’re playing hero.

  • Anonymous

    Yah, his best weapon for self-defense was probably what he used – his car.

  • Jostalin2013

    That was the only accident… They pulled hm from his car beat and stabbed him, slashing his face and chest….

  • Jostalin2013

    HE WAS A WEALTHY ASIAN MAN… 1%er!

    Hopefully Asians realize that no matter how much money they have and how insulated they believe themselves due to their wealth, they can be pulled from their cars and nearly murdered while the NYPD issues parking tickets.

    Just a taste of the de Blasio first term!

  • Jostalin2013

    What would have happened if 200 motorcycle gang members surrounded Emperor Bloomberg’s SUV and began smashing his window as they pulled him out beating and stabbing him? … The Best Feel Good News Story in HISTORY!

  • An ordinary beat cop confronting a terrorist is also a lose/lose situation. That is why NYPD has special officers trained to deal with terrorists. Considering the relative frequency of these dirt bike parades versus terrorist attacks in NYC, if you exclude one notable incident (9/11), dirt bikers are at least as dangerous as the terrorists, and there needs be a unit of the NYPD trained and equipped to deal with these outlaws.

  • carma

    you sir are an idiot.

  • Anonymous

    Do you really believe that?

    The NYPD has the resources of a mid-sized army. They have helicopters. They have heavy artillery. They have thousands of vehicles, including armored combat-style vehicles. They have surveillance over almost the entire city.

    This is one of the few situations where they could justify using all their fancy toys. Plus overtime! The policy of letting these rides occur with only light enforcement is a choice, not a necessity.

  • Jacob Johnson

    uh huh. so I guess the armed bikers would have all been “responsible law-abiding citizens” and not shot back at you and your family, killing everyone? just because you have poor impulse control doesn’t mean everyone else is as suicidal as you are.

  • Jacob Johnson

    this is why I can’t take pro-2nd amendment people seriously. they completely ignore the situation and just spout the same nonsense. Honestly, I do believe there are certain situations where guns would be helpful. This is NOT one of them. the fact that you think it is shows how blind you are.

  • Jacob Johnson

    at least I can agree with you on this.

  • Jacob Johnson

    The SUV driver is in the car with his wife and kids. The bikers outside are slashing his tires and attacking his car. HOW ELSE WAS HE SUPPOSED TO REACT? Wait patiently in his car and PRAY they stop attacking before they get through and hurt his family? The situation was already escalated before the SUV driver took off.

  • sail

    http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=720_1380571291&utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter see it for yourself what these bikers were doing from the beginning breaking the law… what did they expect???

  • Andres Dee

    Actually, Lien likely was not using his car as a weapon at all. He was just trying to get away and some bikers got hit in the process. Reviewing the video, if he’d wanted to “fight”, he could have shoved the bike that pulled on his left off the road (at high speed).

    As a cyclist, I’ve got to throw this out there, notwithstanding being labeled “concern troll”: Nothing we do as a community approaches the menace that these bikers displayed. Still, when we’re cycling as a group in mixed traffic, let’s ride in single or double file, act predictably and pass cars on one side only. In other words, no “swarming”, please.

  • sail

    http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=720_1380571291&utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter and check it out, they were breaking the law from the beginning… scum bags

  • sail

    exactly…. check out what they were doing from this angle http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=720_1380571291&utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

  • sail

    The bikers started hitting the car, that why he drove away. Look at this and see what the bikers were doing…….. law breaking scum bags

  • sail

    check out this video too on how the bikers were breaking the law all over NYC

  • sail
  • sail

    if someone poses a threat to my family, they will be dead before they kill me………. ! by the time cops arrive, the SUV would have been smashed

  • sail
  • sail

    http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=720_1380571291&utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter this video proves it all on how they were just scumbags on bikes

  • sail
  • sail

    exactly check this out……… this is what the bikers were doing earlier

  • Brad Aaron

    This is the second NYC comment thread I’ve seen hijacked by a gun nut in recent days. Both stories at best marginally relevant to firearms. Starting to wonder if this is coincidence.

  • sail
  • sail

    http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=720_1380571291&utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter thug culture…. couldn’t agree more… look what they were doing couple of streets before that happened.

  • Anonymous

    Heavy artillery?

  • Anonymous

    Irony is that I’ve had a gun pulled on me by a road raging driver while I was on my bike approaching a red light (not quick enough apparently). Because I wouldn’t get out of the way, he was screaming at me “Get the f off the road (it was a well dressed couple, who looked like they were going to the Kennedy Center). When I got to the light, I through down my bike and threw my hands in the air and started walking towards him and said “What the hell man!” and that’s when he pulled out the gun and said “Yah mo—–fu—–, you’re messing with a cop, you better step away before you get shot.” I was in too much shock to even get the license plate. Just the site of someone brandishing a gun while screaming at you was pretty traumatizing.

  • Anonymous

    they purchased some weapons systems described as “anti-aircraft systems” in 2002, and I believe again in 2004.

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