More than a dozen maniacs riding motor bikes and ATVs blocked a busy stretch of Broadway in Washington Heights Sunday – just blocks from where a motorist was beaten in front of his wife and child last fall.
A video taken by a neighbor and posted on YouTube shows at least 15 helmeted goons callously blocking cars, burning rubber and popping wheelies in front of the R.G. Ortiz Funeral Home near West 190th Street.
“It was crazy, one of the craziest I’ ve seen because it was so flagrant,” said witness Jon-Marc McDonald, 37, a publicist who lives nearby and who shot video of the mayhem, which began about 3 p.m.
“They were popping wheelies, burning rubber, flying up and down the street,” McDonald told The Post Monday.
The same crew of bikers, he said, pulled the same stunts nearly every weekend until the incident in September, when Alexien Lien was yanked from his car a dozen blocks away and beaten to a bloody pulp as his horrified wife and baby girl looked on.
“These guys come out on a pretty regular basis about once a week until the beating incident in September. They quit, but then they started coming back again,” McDonald said.
But an official at the funeral home said the bikers and ATV riders were pals of a man who had died and whose service was underway.
“They were friends of the deceased, and they just rode around a little bit, maybe five minutes and then they left. There was no problem,” said Anna Reinoso, who said she was “in charge” of the mortuary.
But McDonald was dubious.
“Unless they’re having a funeral every week for their friends, I doubt that’s it,” he said. “These guys weren’t moving for anyone.”
On the video, irate motorists could be heard leaning on their horns as the bikers and ATV drivers took turns doing wheelies and performing other reckless stunts as a crowd gathered, including young children standing perilously close to the action.
Reinoso refused to identify the dead man, and didn’t know if he was a cyclist himself or if the stunts were a some sort of bizarre tribute to the deceased.
The chaos occurred a short walk from the NYPD’s 34th precinct on Broadway.
McDonald said an NYPD cruiser eventually approached the scene and the bikers took off, adding that there was no police pursuit. Cops on Monday said they had no report on the incident.
Lien was yanked from his Range Rover and savagely attacked on West 178th Street on Sept. 29.
The violence erupted after his SUV bumped into a biker’s ride on the West Side Highway near 125th Street in Harlem and the family car was chased 50 blocks uptown.
Numerous bikers – including cops – were arrested, though the charges were later reduced because Lien’s injuries were not as serious as initially thought.
An NYPD spokesman said their were no 911 calls.