A woman was knocked off her bicycle and injured when a pair of suspects fleeing a police stop hit her with their car during a high-speed chase in the East Village, cops and sources said Wednesday.
NYPD housing cops first spotted the two men on NYCHA surveillance cameras loading a gun as they sat in a gray 2018 Mercedes-Benz at Avenue D and Third Street in Alphabet City around 6:40 p.m. Tuesday, the law enforcement sources said.
The officers tried to stop the car at East 3rd Street and Avenue A, but the driver, 30, took off. His front-seat passenger was identified as a 26-year-old member of the “Block Boyz” gang, who is on parole and has seven open arrests, according to the sources.
Other officers spotted the car at Cooper Square and East 5th Street – at which time the passenger bolted from the car, and was arrested a short distance away, police said.
The driver kept going — again refusing to stop at West Houston and Mercer streets — until he struck the 54-year-old woman riding a bike about six blocks away, near MacDougal Street, in Greenwich Village, police said.
She was taken to Bellevue Hospital in stable condition to be treated for cuts and scrapes on her knees, and was having her ankle X-rayed, the sources said.
The motorist, however, then drove the wrong way on MacDougal Street before he, too, got out of the car and rand off, authorities and sources said.
A police officer used a Taser on him and arrested him, the sources said.
Charges were pending against the pair Wednesday.
The passenger in the fleeing car is on parole until February of 2024 for a weapon possession conviction, according to State Correction records.
It was not known if the driver had a criminal record.
The early-evening mayhem comes a week after NYPD brass warned rank-and-file cops to think twice about high-speed pursuits in the wake of recent incidents that left civilians injured.
Chief of Department Jeffrey Maddrey issued a reminder for officers to brush up on existing guidelines for car chases, citing “recent increases in quality of life complaints related to stolen vehicles, and the reckless and illegal operation of all-terrain vehicles and dirt bikes on city streets.”
“A vehicle pursuit must be terminated whenever the risk to members of the service and the public outweighs the danger to the community if the suspect is not immediately apprehended,” he noted in the Aug. 10 memo.
NYPD officials have publicly defended the citywide uptick in car chases as a crucial crime-fighting tool.
“We’re pretty good at it and we’re gonna continue stopping cars and bikes that are breaking laws in New York City,” Chief of Patrol John Chell told WNBC-TV News in a report this week.
A law enforcement source told The Post that Tuesday’s incident was another incident of an alleged criminal trying to evade police with “disregard for any accountability and lawful authority.”
“They] do not think twice about running over someone just to evade arrest,” the sources said.
“We have a duty to apprehend before they bring more harm to the public.”
