The teenager’s family told Eyewitness News correspondent Jim Dolan that he was not there at the time of the accident and was not involved.
Police arrested a 17-year-old man and charged him Friday with crimes that damaged a BMW and a taxi and left passengers dazed.
The accident was reported on Tuesday shortly after 4 pm at the intersection of East 21st Street and Fifth Avenue, and on Thursday, a group of teenagers surrounded two cars and smashed them.
A teenager allegedly kicked a BMW SUV as a large group surrounded it.
The parents of the previously accused teenager said he had an excuse, and he was in Queens Mall buying a gift for his brother at the time of the accident.
His brother and father showed a receipt from around the time of the accident plus what they said were screenshots of his cell phone tracking apps.
„It’s totally unacceptable,“ said Mayor Bill de Blasio. „You have these teens doing the wrong thing, at least one got caught, the others will be arrested. Look, we have to teach our guys better all the time. It’s a duty on all of us. But we also have to have consequences. So there will be consequences in these.“ The situation. I don’t want to see anything like this happen again in New York City. „
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Police are looking for up to four teenagers who were clearly caught in a video throwing a bike over the hood, jumping onto the windshield, and hitting the rear window nine times.
Investigators are working to identify possible identities of at least two of these suspects, and further arrests are expected.
They estimate that as many as 25 cyclists were part of the BMW surrounding group, previously a yellow cab on East 29th Street and Fifth Avenue.
Attorney Tine Geragos recorded the video and said she saw many others doing the same.
“Suddenly, I heard a loud screaming and pounding,” she said. „I ran from the conference table to the window to see what the disturbance was. I saw dozens and dozens of cyclists beating and taking turns and hitting their bikes with the cab driver, and the cab driver’s cabin.“
She is appealing to anyone with a video of these incidents to hand them over to the police.
„There were many, many of them, and they took turns hitting the back of his window,“ she said. „Then, they wiped his car’s mirrors completely off the sides, and then a biker hit him.“
She said she was shocked.
„I was terrified, and I saw it now and realized that it had happened to other people,“ she said. It was terrifying. It was almost unbelievable because it wasn’t like anything I had seen in town. I was really praying that everything was fine.
36-year-old BMW driver, Max Turgovnik, was with his mother when the scene unfolded. He said he was still unable to cope with the trauma of Fifth Avenue in broad daylight – and feared for both his life and his mother.
He said, „I noticed this swarm of cyclists, tall, young children weaving in and out of traffic sort of surrounding the car.“ „We got to the point where they were in front of me and they were on my side and behind me, and I’m probably traveling at seven or eight miles an hour.“
Turgovnik said the children were holding the door handles. He said his first instinct was to slow down, stop, and let them pass.
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He said he hadn’t seen her, but a witness told him that someone was behind the car on a bike doing a wheelie. As he slowed down, it appeared that the driver had hit the rear of the car.
This is what instigated the attack, Turgovnik says. He said he stopped when he heard the noise to make sure everyone was okay.
“I started to open the driver’s door, but was immediately surrounded on every side by these kids who just got off their bikes and started screaming, screaming, punching the car, hitting the hood, and just yelling,“ Get out, get out, open the window and open the window, ”when I didn’t, they started to launch their aggression against the car itself. „
Anyone with information is required to contact the New York Police Crime Hotline at 1-800-577-TIPS (8477) or, in Spanish, 1-888-57-PISTA (74782).
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