NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) – A man and his mother were going to see the Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree on Tuesday when men on bicycles jumped in their SUV, banging on the windows and shouting for them to get out.
Surveillance video shows the wild scene in Midtown.
Hazel Sanchez of CBS2 spoke to the driver, who said he had not slept and that his mother was severely traumatized by Tuesday’s attack. Both said they thought their lives were over.
As the footage shows, it was a scary sight in the afternoon. A group of young cyclists surround an SUV and throw their bodies and bikes into the vehicle while their driver freezes in fear.
The attackers finally retreat after one jumps on the hood and breaks the windshield.
Max Torgovnick, of the Upper East Side, was behind the wheel of that vehicle.
“When he broke the glass, at that point, my biggest fear was if they were going to get in the car, they were going to pull me out and I could be killed,” said Torgovnick. “All I could hear was my mom crying and screaming. This is what most haunts me. “
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Torgovnick said the confrontation started while he and his 74-year-old mother were driving down Fifth Avenue on East 22nd Street in their BMW SUV. He said dozens of cyclists surrounded his SUV, clinging to the vehicle for a ride.
“There was someone doing a wheelie right behind the car and it hit the back and it kind of instigated everything,” said Torgovnick. “They were all out of their bikes around the car, hitting the glass, hitting the hood, shouting, ‘Get out of the car! Lower your window! ‘”
“Before I knew it, my mom was crying. She is shouting over the phone to the 911 operator: ‘Help! Send help! We are going to die. They will kill us, ”he added.
Torgovnick said he stopped the car and parked it, worried that any movement would hurt someone outside or aggravate the violence.
“It wasn’t until they started jumping on the windshield and breaking the glass and we had glass raining down on us that I saw an opening and said, ‘I need to get out of here. I now need to protect my mother. This is now a point of self-defense. This is life or death, ‘”said Torgovnick.
The police released static images of some of the cyclists he was looking for.
“I lived here all my life as a New Yorker, for 36 years. I feel I have a right to answers from the city about what allowed this to happen and what they are going to do to make sure it doesn’t happen to anyone else, ”said Torgovnick.
The police believe that the cyclists they seek are teenagers. A security guard who works in the neighborhood said the group of cyclists had caused problems in the area before.