Neighborhood complaints over the proliferation of unregistered gas-powered scooters in East Williamsburg, Brooklyn, sparked a brawl between newly arrived migrants and cops who confiscated more than a dozen of the mini-bikes on Thursday morning, according to police and witnesses.
As tensions over the city’s migrant crisis remained high, NYPD officers arrested six men for assaulting police, disorderly conduct, obstructing government administration, weapons possession, harassment, menacing and inciting a riot outside a migrant shelter on Flushing Ave. near Jefferson St. just before 8 a.m., cops said.
Cops confiscated 16 motorbikes, according to authorities, after people in the neighborhood griped to the city about unregistered scooters taking up scarce parking and crowding the sidewalks.
This was the second time this summer that authorities confiscated illegal motorscooters in front of the shelter.
A shelter worker said that the bikes had become a problem again.
“If you want to have these bikes, you have to take proper ownership. They have to be registered and insured,” he told the Daily News. “That’s why the cops came today.”
Yerol Polanco, 26, of Venezuela, arrived in the city two months ago. He said he used his bike to earn money making deliveries for UberEats.
Now, he doesn’t know what he’s going to do.
“They took my way of working,” he told The News. “I have to get a new motorcycle. It’s very difficult. I don’t know what I’m going to do now.
“I didn’t have the papers that I needed to get a [license] plate. I know the police were doing their job. I’m only trying to work and live. What can I do? I have no way of working.”
A worker at the shelter, which sits in a neighborhood where hipster boutiques bump up next to Chinese wholesale warehouses, said that there were at least 50 mopeds and bikes parked in front of the shelter Thursday.
He said that a large truck pulled up to block the bikes from getting out, and then police started confiscating them.
“[Police] were cutting off the locks and that’s when the fracas started,” said the man, who was not authorized to speak. “They were actively assaulting the police officers. It’s a good thing [the police] were here, [the migrants] were going to maul the traffic [enforcement] guys.”
The shelter employee said that once word trickled up to the upper floors of the building where the new arrivals were staying, the chaos started.
“They were going crazy,” he said of the migrants. “They were coming down and jumping on the bikes as they were taking them away.”
The area’s Councilwoman Jennifer Gutierrez acknowledged that there had been grumbling in the neighborhood about the bikes, but took issue with the police reaction.
“While the confiscation was in response to community complaints, I am disappointed at how these actions were performed and don’t agree with the fear and intimidation tactics that the NYPD is performing on behalf of the mayor,” said Gutierrez, a Democrat.
The dust-up comes on the same day that the mayor issued a dire warning about the influx of migrants to city, saying the “issue will destroy New York City.”
Janon Fisher, Kerry Burke, Josephine Stratman
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