New York City police continue to hunt for as many as 30 motorcyclists who forced a driver on a harrowing high-speed chase through Upper Manhattan and then beat him in front of his wife and 2-year-old daughter.
The six-minute pursuit on Sunday — which was captured on video and posted on YouTube — began when the driver of a black Range Rover called 911 to report erratic bikers taking part in an unauthorized rally dubbed Hollywood Stuntz, police told NBC New York.
The video shows the motorcycles converged on the 33-year-old man's vehicle on the West Side Highway in Harlem, and he apparently clipped a bike that cut closely in front of him.
The motorcycle rider suffered a broken leg, Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said. Some of the other bikers then surrounded the SUV.
"They take their helmets and start to dent his car, and apparently his tires are slashed there with a knife," Kelly said.
The video, shot with a helmet-mounted camera, shows the driver then took off, knocking down more bikes as others tore up the highway after him.
During a 50-block chase, the bikers managed to trap the Range Rover again, and one of them got off and pulled open the driver's side door before the motorist swerved and sped away.
After his tires finally went flat on a side street, the group blocked him in again. One biker was seen yanking off his helmet and using it to smash in the SUV window.
Police said the man suffered black eyes and other injuries in the subsequent beating. After receiving some stitches, he was released from Columbia University Medical Center.
No arrests have been made, but police are examining surveillance video from a nearby gas station where some of the motorcyclists stopped.
Kelly said the bikers did not have a permit for the rally and the NYPD only learned of the show-boating event — in its second year — through social media.
He said police had fanned out around Manhattan to watch for trouble, arresting 15 bikers and confiscating 55 motorcycles unrelated to the attack on the Range Rover.
