Panicked 911 Calls Played in Biker Road Rage Case

Panicked, emotional 911 calls were played as testimony continued Thursday in the case of an SUV driver beaten bloody by a group of angry motorcyclists after he'd run a biker over on a Manhattan highway. 

Prosecutors argued at the trial of undercover detective Wojciech Braszczok and co-defendant Robert Sims that the trouble with the bikers began long before they swarmed Alexian Lien's SUV and dragged him out to pummel him in front of his wife and 2-year-old child.

Prosecutors played 911 calls from witnesses who saw the motorcyclists driving dangerously on the Henry Hudson Parkway in September 2013. 

"They ran the red light, they almost hit me, my baby and my wife," one driver said in a call.

Another driver told the 911 dispatcher, "They're speeding, they're doing wheelies, they're running red lights. They're a menace." 

"There is a huge, a mass of outlaw motorcycles," the caller continued. "Running red lights, doing wheelies, very, very dangerous stuff. Driving in the wrong lane. Hundreds and hundreds of motorcycles." 

On the witness stand earlier this week, Lien said he, his wife and their toddler were headed to New Jersey for some shopping for the couple's anniversary. But when they hit the West Side Highway in their blue Range Rover, they crossed paths with hundreds of bikers. Some were popping wheelies and slapping the tops of cars they passed.

One motorcyclist tried to block other cars from going north to allow the bikes to pass, but Lien said he was "annoyed" and wanted to get on with his day, so he kept driving. As the bikes whizzed by, his wife tossed a half-eaten plum and later a water bottle at the bikers, he said.

Tensions rose. A motorcyclist knocked off his rear-view mirror, and Lien was eventually forced to a stop as some bikers got off their rides and approached his car.

"And as they're around my car, I feel it being hit, being kicked," he said. "I'm horrified at this point, and I recall asking my wife, 'What do I do? What do I do?' " he recounted through tears. "She says, 'Just go! Just go!"

"And I make a hard right because I see there's an opening and I ... I just go."

He said he knew he had hit someone. "But I just wanted to escape the situation," he said.

Bikers followed him off the highway, eventually pulling him from the SUV and attacking him in front of his wife and daughter. The brutal gang assault was captured on cellphone video played in court Wednesday. 

In one of the 911 calls played by prosecutors Thursday, a witness who saw the assault said, "They pulled him out of the car and hit him in the face all over the place. In the head, too."

Bystander Sergio Consuegra was there and stepped in, saving Lien. 

"If they would have killed the man, they would have done a lot of time in jail, and I think I did the right thing for everybody," he told reporters in court Thursday. 

Lien needed at least 20 stitches and has permanent scars on his face from the attack, Assistant District Attorney Joshua Steinglass said.

In his testimony earlier this week, Lien said he was in "complete fear. For my life, for my wife's, for my daughter's." 

Braszczok, who was off duty when he participated in the rally gone wrong, was accused by Steinglass of failing to act as a police officer. Braszczok reached into a broken window on the SUV, then stood by and eventually drove off as others pulled Lien from the car and attacked him, prosecutors said.

"Not only did he fail to protect and serve, he cast his lot in with the assailants," Steinglass said.

Defense attorney John Arlia said Braszczok was acting as a cop afraid of blowing his deep cover. He denied Braszczok took part in any assault. Braszczok should have told his colleagues that he'd seen the assault, but he was afraid of losing his job, Arlia said.

"But that does not make him a criminal," he said.

Sims' lawyer Luther Williams didn't give an opening statement, but has said his client was working with police and helped save the life of the biker struck by Lien.

The defendants decided to have a judge, not a jury, determine the outcome. Eleven men were indicted after the melee; the others have pleaded guilty to charges including assault and riot and face sentences of probation to two years in prison. Some of the road encounters were caught on video and posted online, becoming a highway horror story to millions who saw the footage. 

Lien was not charged. The biker Lien hit, Edwin Mieses, was paralyzed.

Copyright AP - Associated Press
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