Five New York Police Department (NYPD) officers were injured as they tried to break up a fight in Hell’s Kitchen in New York on Thursday.
The brawl started when a teenager reportedly ran into oncoming traffic on the corner of West 52nd Street and Eighth Avenue at 2:30 p.m. and collided with a taxi cab. However, students from the nearby high school accused the driver of hitting the teenager, but the driver said it was the student’s fault.
“We looked outside and we had seen that a cab had run over a pedestrian who was running across the street,” said an eyewitness who was at the nearby Cosmic Diner when the event occurred.
“The light was green. The pedestrian tried to run through that traffic. The cab hit that pedestrian, who fell down in the street,” adding that “fights started to break out between the police and the folks who were there and so the fights started to spill out almost in a royal rumble sort of way.”
The fight continued to escalate when four or five people jumped on top of the cab driver’s Toyota SUV and began kicking and punching the vehicle.
“Video showed a chaotic scene as a group of people were crowded around the vehicle, and police were seen bringing at least one person to the ground,” according to NBC 4 New York.
Reports said the brawlers refused to comply with police commands to disperse and began attacking the officers themselves. However, the officers suffered only minor injuries, according to the Daily Mail.
An NYPD spokesman said four of the teenagers were taken into custody but were not charged. The teenager who reportedly ran into traffic was taken to Mount Sinai West hospital with non-life threatening injuries and is in stable condition.
Badal Roy, a cab driver who was not involved in the initial incident, said several brawlers jumped onto the hood of his yellow cab and left it severely damaged.
“I was feeling unsafe. I didn’t get out of the car. I locked the door and stayed inside. I was helpless. I called the police,” Roy told reporters.
“Who can pay for this damage?” he continued. “I do not own this car, this car belongs to a garage.”
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