The BMW driver whose car 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 the escape: “We are going to die, they are going to kill us! “
Max Torgovnick, 36, reported the distressing dispute with The Post the day after it happened around 4 pm Tuesday on 21st Street with Fifth Avenue.
“It’s something I never expected to happen in New York City,” said Torgovnick, a lifelong resident of the city. “This is something you would see on the streets of a war zone. I never thought New York would look this bad. ”
Torgovnick and his mother had just delivered a donation to Housing Works – a non-profit organization that helps fight homelessness and the AIDS crisis – and were going to his father’s neurology practice when they found what he estimated to be about 50 teenage bikers, said Torgovnick.
“I slowed down to let them pass, but then they started surrounding the car on both sides, and one of the bikers did a somersault and went to the back of my car,” said Torgovnick. “I stopped to make sure that nobody got hurt.”
It was then that the group started hitting the car with their fists, feet and even bicycles, and trying to open the doors, shouting: “Get out! Skirt! ”, According to Torgovnick and 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,” said Torgovnick, referring to a 2013 incident in which a gang of motorcyclists cornered a man he was driving with his family, causing him to speed up for them. afraid for their own safety.
Eventually, a biker jumped on the car and jumped on the windshield, causing it to partially collapse.
“At that point, I was afraid they would break the window, get in the car, reach out and pull us out,” said Torgovnick of himself and his mother, who is in her 70s. “My only thoughts at that time were self-defense, [that] I wanted to protect my mother and I also didn’t want to hurt anyone. “
The whole time, his mother was frantically calling 911.
“She was screaming, ‘We’re going to die, they’re going to kill us,'” recalled Torgovnick.
Torgovnick finally “found an opening” in the bicycle lock and drove a few blocks safely.
The police are looking for the perpetrators, who similarly attacked at least one other vehicle, a yellow taxi, at the same time and place.
After the nightmare encounter, Torgovnick said he saw the bright side of the city he calls home.
“The cops were incredibly comforting,” said Torgovnick, noting that they took his mother to his father’s office while warm-hearted strangers waited with him for a tow truck. “This is another thing about New Yorkers. They are very useful. “