Another biker arrested in NYC attack on SUV driver

NEW YORK A fourth motorcyclist has been charged in connection with the beating of a motorist pulled from his car and set upon by a group of bikers in New York City.

Police say 29-year-old Craig Wright, of Brooklyn, was arrested Monday on charges of gang assault, assault and unlawful imprisonment.

Police say the bikers swarmed the SUV on a highway and when driver Alexian Lien bumped a motorcycle whose rider had apparently deliberately slowed down, several bikers surrounded the SUV and began to damage the vehicle.

Lien sped off, plowing into a motorcyclist. Bikers chased the SUV, pulled Lien from his vehicle and began beating him in front of his wife and 2-year-old daughter, police said. Large portions of the Sept. 29 incident were captured on video.

Three other bikers, including Robert Sims, 35, and Reginald Chance, 37, both from Brooklyn, have been charged in the incident. Authorities say Sims is the man captured on video pulling open the door of Lien's SUV, and that Chance was seen using his helmet to bash in the vehicle's window.

Christopher Cruz, faces charges of unlawful imprisonment, reckless endangerment, reckless driving, endangering the welfare of a child and menacing. Police say Cruz triggered the initial confrontation by slowing down his bike and then going to confront Lien after being bumped. Cruz has denied brake-checking Lien and says he was merely trying to exchange driver information.

Lien has not been charged. The biker he ran over, Edwin Meises Jr., suffered two broken legs and spinal injuries that his family says will leave himparalyzed.

Lien's wife has said her family was in danger and her husband had no choice but to flee the scene.

Meanwhile, an undercover detective who attended the motorcycle rally did not see Mieses being struck or see the SUV driver subsequently attacked by bikers, his lawyer lawyer said Monday.

The detective joined the pack of riders following the black Range Rover up Manhattan's West Side Highway after it struck motorcyclist Meises because he thought there had been a hit-and-run, said attorney Phil Karasyk with the Detectives' Endowment Association.

He later saw the bikers attacking the SUV but didn't see the motorist pulled from the vehicle and beaten, Karasyk said.