Skateboarders
The popular skateboarding spot was in jeopardy.
"Without warning, the police officer used one hand to grab my forearm and the other hand to grab the back of my neck. He then put me in a chokehold and this is what happened next."
Skateboarders are out today for the annual "Broadway Bomb" event.
A Lower East Side store owner was brutally beaten by a group of skateboarders last week.
"Not only had they unnecessarily assaulted me, but they had accessed my phone without my permission and deleted all evidence I had of them doing so," Kyle McCabe told us.
Defiant skateboarders and cops are out in full force today for the annual "Broadway Bomb" event, a nearly 8-mile Manhattan race for longboard aficionados.
It takes 8 days to skateboard from Boston to NYC.
Defiant longboarders are out in full force today, despite cops setting up roadblocks and cutting off Broadway at various parts on the Upper West Side. Check out some photos and tweets. [UPDATE BELOW]
"It threw him into the middle of the street. I saw the guy flying," one witness recalled.
City councilmember Margaret Chin was SHOCKED to find the area rife with skateboarders. "It's really dangerous," Chin said in a hearing last week.
At Benjamin Soto Park (YouTube) After the Parks Department gleefully destroyed