The BMW driver whose journey was surrounded and destroyed by a gang of cyclists on Fifth Avenue was attacked in broad daylight while driving with his elderly mother – who shouted during their escape: “We will die, they will kill us! “
Max Torgovnick, 36, recounted the run at The Post, a day after it took place around 4pm on Tuesday, 21nd Street and Fifth Avenue.
“It’s something I never expected to happen in New York,” said Torgovnick, a lifelong city resident. “It’s something you see on the streets of a war zone. I never thought New York would be so bad. “
Torgovnick and his mother had just given up a donation to Housing Works – a non-profit organization that helps fight homelessness and the AIDS crisis – and were on their way to his father’s neurology office when they encountered what he estimated to be about 50 people. teenage motorcyclists, Torgovnick said.
“I slowed down to let them pass, but then they started circling the car on both sides, and one of the motorcyclists made a wheel and got in the back of my car,” Torgovnick said. “I stopped to make sure no one was hurt.”
Then the group started punching, kicking, and even biking at the car and trying to open the doors, shouting, “Get out! Get out! According to Torgovnick, a wild video of the incident.
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“All I thought about was that incident a few years ago on the West Side Highway,” Torgovnick said, referring to a 2013 incident in which a gang of motorcyclists punched a man driving together. with the family, leading him to accelerate through fear. for your own safety.
Finally, a motorcyclist jumped into the car and jumped on the windshield, causing him to partially collapse.
“At the time, I was afraid they would break the window, get in the car, get in and get us out,” Torgovnick said of him and his 70-year-old mother. “My only thoughts at the time were self-defense, [that] I wanted to protect my mother, and I also didn’t want to hurt anyone. “
All the while, his mother dialed 911 frantically.
“She screamed, ‘We’re going to die, they’re going to kill us,'” Torgovnick recalls.
Torgovnick eventually “found an opening” by blocking the bikes and driving a few blocks safely.
Police are looking for the perpetrators, who similarly attacked at least one other vehicle, a yellow cab, at the same time and location.
Following the nightmare meeting, Torgovnick said he saw the good part of the city he calls home.
“The police were incredibly comforting,” Torgovnick said, noting that they drove their mother to her father’s office while good-hearted strangers waited for a trailer with him. “It’s the other thing about New Yorkers. They are very useful. “