By: Blasted Fools
Editor’s Note: If you’ve been reading my columns for awhile, one thing you’ve noticed is that I seldom if ever, jump on a story or a national headline for commentary the first day – sometimes not for days, sometimes not for over a week or more. The main reason is that the information reported by the legacy media is either incomplete or turns out to be materially incorrect with regards to vital facts. This ‘best practice’ of mine has served me well – so well, that I’ve only been snakebitten a few times. On stories like Benghazi or Trayvon Martin, it’s the Wild, Wild, West when the story breaks, because the network that is first, does a hatchet job with the timeline and circumstances in order to achieve a ‘two-fer’ – a story that fits the liberal narrative and that is sensationalized. The other hazard is a public official who serves up distortions ranging from gross inaccuracies all the way up to outright lies. That, we recall, was the case with Benghazi, and all the truth still hasn’t been wrung out of that event. Since I am not a reporter, but someone who probes the details of a story for insights that are not in wide currency, I insist on settled facts. Such is the case with the Henry Hudson Parkway bike gang assault.
If not for the value of a brisk title, I might have named this post ‘Termites In Blue, Black and Red‘, because we have representations of destructive pests in all hues; corrupt and felonious players within the NYPD, Black bike club members and an infamous bloodsucking leach that appears at press conferences in her patented Red legal ensembles. In the follow up to the rampage in Manhattan by the punk bike club / gang ‘Hollywood Stuntz’, in which the public streets of New York City were besieged and a family was terrorized, some remarkable, but not entirely unforeseen circumstances have developed. In this, yet again, I had a sense that as the evidence unraveled, we’d see an avalanche of irresponsibility and neglect on the part of the authorities. There’s a Cherry on top of this Sundae, however, and that is the emergence of media whore, Gloria Allred. There’s also a hero that most of you are not familiar with – as well as many other details that have been meagerly reported at best.
The major aftershock of the viral account of marauding bikers, the critically injured motorcyclist and the dad beaten nearly to unconsciousness for trying to protect his family, is the arrest of an off-duty NYC cop, who was among the attackers.
Cop turned Hoodlum in a Hoodie. Those hoodies get around, don’t they?
Wojciech Braszczok, 32, was part of the motorcycle rally on Sept. 29. As The Associated Press says, the rally “began with a reckless motorcycle group ride on a Manhattan highway … [and ended when] one motorcyclist was run over, and the SUV driver was dragged from behind the wheel and beaten on a street.” New York Police Department spokesman John McCarthy confirmed the arrest. The AP says NYPD internal affairs “began looking into the undercover detective’s conduct because he didn’t report having been at the rally until three days later. The expectation that police officers will act if they see crimes isn’t the same for undercover officers.” McCarthy says video evidence allegedly shows that Braszczok, who was off-duty at the time of the incident, “shattered the window [of the SUV] with his gloved hand.”
Compounding Braszczok’s problems is that he’s lied about his involvement in the incident. The New York Post says, “Braszczok told authorities that he pulled up toward the end of the beating, leaving him no time to help victim Alexian Lien or his terrified wife and 2-year-old daughter in the SUV, sources said.” Braszczok did nothing to stop the assault, prosecutors said. He didn’t call 911 and didn’t report it to his superiors for two days, and then when he did, he lied about it, Assistant District Attorney Samantha Turino said. At first Braszczok told investigators he didn’t see the attack, then changed his story to say he saw it but didn’t participate, she said.
But the involvement of Braszczok, is not where NYPD’s problems end. It’s just where they begin. The U.K.’s Daily Mail reveals:
At least five off-duty New York Police Department officers have admitted being present at the savage revenge beating last weekend on the Henry Hudson Parkway, according to reports. Among the off duty cops were at least two detectives and three other officers, all who witnessed the attack and did little to stop it. One of the detectives, an undercover narcotics officer, watched as the violence broke out and chose not to break it up for fear of ruining his cover. The five officers were not the only ones present – WABC is reporting that the NYPD is investigating whether several off-duty corrections officers were also there. Police who saw the violent attack did not begin coming forward until Wednesday – four days later.
There’s another remarkable nugget here concerning the rogue police aspect of this story. Back in August, according to media reports, a Queens prosecutor and her boyfriend, an NYPD detective, were busted for fighting with cops, who were trying to keep their verbal battle from turning physical. Off-duty Detective Samir Gonsalves, 34, and Assistant DA Jacqueline Rizk were screaming at each other on Steinway Street in Astoria at 10:15 a.m. when cops, alerted by a cabby, arrived. The on-duty officers attempted to calm down the brawling lovebirds. Gonsalves pushed one of the officers and was wrestled to the ground, cops said. While his colleagues were cuffing Gonsalves, of Brooklyn’s 88th Precinct, Rizk allegedly jumped on a cop’s back.
So here we have two of the elements of which we will shortly be learning more in terms of their contributions to the setting that led to the incident on September 29th – NYPD and NYC Prosecutors. Detective Gonsalves’ involvement with the bike rampage raises even more questions. Gonsalves assaults other officers in early August and is released on zero bail and then lo and behold, we find that he is one of the antagonists that attacked Lien and his family!
Beyond that, the police were familiar with the kind of element that was wilding that Sunday. The ‘Hollywood Stuntz’ club / gang are reputed to have been involved in attacking motorists before this event. This same group of bikers descended on New York City and clogged up Times Square last year, acknowledged Police Commissioner Kelly. This year officers prevented the mob on wheels from entering Times Square and arrested 15 bikers, seized 55 bikes and wrote 68 summons. Just a parenthetical note – why do you suppose that 55 bikes were seized? Couldn’t have to do with most of them being stolen? There was another bike gang participating in this spree as well – a Black gang named the ‘Front Line Soldiers’ hailing from New Rochelle, NJ. Front Line Soldiers? What a travesty. Here’s the graphic headlining their Facebook page – with their insignia upper right, y’all:
‘Colors’ in the jargon of the gang culture, are the insignias and distinctive attire, which displayed, is a provocation to rival gangs.
NYPD dispatchers received over 200 complaints from residents in the areas the thugs dispersed to. Now, I ask you – how reasonable is it to think that the scores of punks involved on this invasion of Manhattan, are going to give up and peacefully return home? It isn’t, but the negligence of NYPD led to the remnants of this mobile pack of cretins adopting plan B – finding unprotected roadways in the city and other motorists to harass. Interestingly, NYPD’s 34th Precinct Division is only 2 blocks from the scene of the attack on the family. Well, we all know what happened next, but there’s more behind this you most likely haven’t heard. For one, several of the perps had extensive criminal records and have been dealt with gingerly by the courts and New York City prosecutors in previous run-ins.
Edwin Mieses, the rider who appears to be paralyzed, is (surprise, surprise), not the angel that his new lawyer, Gloria Allred represents him to be in her media appearances. Mieses is first of all not licensed, nor has ever been licensed to ride a motorbike on public roadways, in any state – let alone his home state of Massachusetts. Moreover, he doesn’t have a legal driver’s license for any type of vehicle and wouldn’t have been reviewed by Massachusetts for permission to drive until 2017! Well, scrap that date at this point, I would guess. But we’re not done. He’s been arrested twice for driving without a license and in 2001, was sentenced to a year in jail for said offense. But that’s spitting on the sidewalk stuff, compared to the other trouble Ms. Allred’s client has been in. The Boston Herald reviewed Mieses full criminal record. It is six pages long and includes convictions for drugs, guns, attaching plates and destruction of property.
Keep that in mind when you hear Mieses family members bemoaning Edwin’s fate – family members such as Mieses sister Margie Mejia. “I don’t condone the violence, there’s no need for it, but I’m glad they chased him down and they stopped him (the driver, Alexian Lien)”, says Margie. So, she’s glad they chased him down, well, because you know, what’s the point in letting the terrorized family get somewhere safe where they can securely alert authorities? No, evidently mob vigilantism is the standard in Margie’s ‘hood’. When someone utters the phrase, “I don’t condone the violence” and then tags on the word, but – that means that actually yes, they do condone the violence.
Let’s look also at the backgrounds of the other punks that were involved and have been taken into custody so far. The New York Post, in a breakdown of Reginald Chance’s prior arrests confirm that Chance is a seasoned career criminal with an extensive rap list.
Junk justice left him free to raise hell after an April drug deal near a Brooklyn school. Chance had allegedly sold cocaine through a middleman to an undercover cop in Bed-Stuy. A warrant was later executed on an apartment Chance was in and turned up cocaine, pot and a loaded handgun. Chance was busted and hit with gun and drug raps and faced more than 25 years’ prison. But Brooklyn prosecutors dropped the gun rap when Chance was indicted. Under a sweetheart plea bargain overseen by Brooklyn Criminal Court Judge Suzanne Mondo, all the remaining felony drug charges against Chance were also dropped.
Reginald Chance at his arraignment and his impressive mastery of sign language.
The attorneys for these snakes on Suzukis, are quite the trip as well. Typical is Reginald Chance‘s lawyer, Gregory Watts who said that his client was justified in attempting to catch up with Alexian Lien after he knocked down fellow biker Edwin Mieses and then fleeing. “It is entirely reasonable to try and identify the driver after a motor-vehicle accident.” Maybe, if that was all that had happened, but it wasn’t, Mr. Watts. Nevertheless Watts went on to add that Chance, who when finally catching up with Lien, went on to smash Lien’s window a number of times with his helmet was merely “over excited”. Evidently, just as one man’s ceiling is another man’s floor; one man’s criminal road rage is another man’s ‘over excitement’.
Another biker, Craig Wright of Brooklyn, 29 was charged with gang assault, police say. A police spokesperson John McCarthy went on to disclose that Craig Wright, punched Lien through the broken window and joined in stomping him on the street. A judge set Wright’s bail at $100,000. Wright’s license tag was visible in the video — which hasn’t been released to the media — and his uncle identified him for authorities. It also emerged that Craig Wright in March pleaded guilty to driving with a suspended license. He was also convicted in Virginia in 2005 for reckless driving.
Then there’s Robert Sims. Robert Sims, 35, who allegedly grabbed the SUV’s door about five minutes into the video, turned himself in to police Friday in Brooklyn, NYPD officials said. He faces charges of gang assault, assault and criminal possession of a weapon, according to police. Sims was arrested in 1998 for possession of a loaded firearm and a samurai sword, and he served eight months in jail, police said.
There’s some obvious cracks in the revolving door justice system that put citizens at needless risk. Why can’t we get a break? Why do we have people with low-level (not felony) drug convictions taking up space in jails and prisons, when the kind of swine you saw in the video footage of this attack, are turned out again and again? Could it have anything to do with the prosecutors and judges, not having to live in areas where their benefactors are operating their game? Gated, guarded communities go a long way toward making the criminal element seem nothing more than an abstraction it seems. Other arrests have been subsequently made, and although none of the media reports have detailed whether the latest parties have criminal records. The bail amounts involved however, $150,000 average, suggest that it is likely.
If this weren’t such a tragedy and traumatic experience for the victims, the behavior of the attorneys of the ‘alleged’ perpetrators, could be considered high comedy. To listen to each of the attorneys claiming that their client had no role in the attack on Alexian Lien, you’d have to assume that Mr. Lien punched, kicked and stomped himself into near unconsciousness. Concurrent with that, is the time honored lawyer media tactic of asserting that “it wasn’t my client, it was one of the other participants”. Uh-huh. The emergence of Gloria Allred – the opportunistic shrew that she is – and who will attempt to extort money from the Lien family by accusing Mr. Lien of provoking the incident – will turn this into yet another exploitative media circus, custom fabricated for the cable TV vultures. Goody, the family gets to be victimized twice. The only downside, I suspect, is that no one was murdered, but Allred doesn’t need a murder to organize a freak show, starring herself.
Apparently, the involvement of law enforcement officers in street and motorcycle gangs is not unheard of elsewhere, but one hopes it is not an emerging trend. Consider this report from the Prescott, AZ Daily Courier:
“Incident reports from the Prescott Police Department paint a picture of an unruly scene inside a Whiskey Row bar where a fight allegedly occurred Dec. 22, 2012, between members of a police motorcycle club and a bar patron. The Iron Brotherhood Motorcycle Club is a men’s group made up of active and retired law enforcement officers from Prescott and Prescott Valley police departments, Yavapai County Sheriff’s Office, DPS and other law enforcement agencies throughout the state.
Witnesses told police that after Iron Brotherhood Motorcycle Club members entered Moctezuma’s Bar on Dec. 22, some members fought with a bar patron, then swung at bar employees trying to break it up. One witness told investigating officers she jumped behind the bar because men wearing black vests “were coming up to the bar” and “everybody was swinging at everybody.” Another witness said “he did not know what to do, because he knew the group of bikers to be police officers,” according to PPD reports.
Earlier that evening, about 20 Iron Brotherhood members wearing black vests displaying their club’s name held a party with wives and girlfriends in a back room at Hooligan’s Pub. Witnesses told officers “they were a rowdy group,” the bar “cut off about 90 percent of them from alcohol by the time the party ended,” and “the whole group was acting like some outlaw motorcycle gang,” the police reports state.”
And in Chicago in November 2011, two officers of the Chicago Police Department were arrested and indicted on armed robbery charges stemming from their involvement with the Latin Kings street gang. Some of the robberies were done while the defendants were in police uniforms!
Ah, but I promised you a hero and a hero you shall have. First though, it is important to factor into this incident that the wife of the driver and her baby were nearly victims of felony assault. “Our plan last Sunday was to celebrate our wedding anniversary by having a nice family day out with our two-year-old daughter,” Rosalyn Ng’s statement reads. “Unfortunately, instead, we were placed in grave danger by a mob of reckless and violent motorcyclists.”
That’s putting it mildly. Alexian Lien’s wife and child were shielded from physical harm, not by any of the cowards among the cowardly mob, or undercover ‘law enforcement’ officers who were aiding and abetting the proceedings, but by an unarmed gentlemen in the neighborhood on his way to church. Once they trapped the vehicle, the thugs even tried to grab Lien’s wife, who was inside with the couple’s 2-year-old, a witness who’s being hailed as a good Samaritan said Sunday.
“We saw one of them opening the door of the passenger’s side and trying to force the lady out of the car,” said Sergio Consuegra, 52, who jumped between the dad and the bikers. Consuegra said he was on his way to church when he saw the riders start bashing the car at W. 178th St. and St. Nicholas Ave. and trying to pull Roselyn Ng out. “She had the baby in her arms, I guess she was protecting the baby from all the glass that was flying inside and outside,” Consuegra says. “At that moment, nobody’s stepping in.”
Consuegra decided that it was up to him. “I said, ‘Oh, I gotta do something, there’s a family in danger here,’” He had been on his way to a prayer meeting. He recalls that he felt God was with him as he stepped up and extended his arms. He was the very opposite of a cowardly mob. “That’s it, guys, let it go, “ he cried out. “Let it go.” He recalls meeting the gaze of the assailants—him peering into their eyes, them peering into his for a tense and eternal moment. They backed down and it was over.
That’s the real message in this story. It only takes one man to stand up to a pack of cowards, who would never risk the consequences of their behavior if not running in a pack. Perhaps the best summation of this turbulent assault, was one I read in the comments section of one of the media reports, written by a individual named Will Harper:
“No sympathy for these thugs. I’ve been riding since I was 13 and this is one of the reasons I rarely ride in a large group. The testosterone-driven or psychotic often see a group ride as a stage and the escalation of bad behavior becomes a threat to the group and others along the way. Same as in any mob situation. Throw the book at them and any others who stood by and watched it happen. As far as the rider who was run over, no sympathy there either. The road does not belong to self appointed vigilantes. Sitting on your bike in front of a vehicle in the middle of a public road is nothing more than arrogance and / or a death wish.”
