'We Were in Grave Danger,' Says Wife of SUV Driver in Highway Brawl as Bikers Rally for Rider Crippled by Her Husband
Speaking out for the first time since her husband was beaten by a gang of bikers after he crippled one of their colleagues in a brawl along Manhattan's West Side Highway in New York on Sunday, the wife of SUV driver Alexian Lien, 33, said the bikers forced his reaction by putting their family "in grave danger."
"Our plan last Sunday was to celebrate our wedding anniversary by having a nice family day out with our 2-year-old daughter," said Lien's wife, Rosalyn Ng, in a statement released Thursday through the family's lawyers, according to the New York Post.
"Unfortunately, instead, we were placed in grave danger by a mob of reckless and violent motorcyclists."
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Ng said her husband "was forced under the circumstances to take the actions that he did in order to protect the lives of our entire family" and argued that he should not be blamed for running over Edwin Mieses Jr. who is currently in a medically induced coma at St. Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital in New York City nursing a broken spine and other injuries.
"We know in our hearts that we could not have done anything differently," added Ng in the statement. "Our fear for our lives was confirmed when the incident ended with the ruthless and brutal attack on my husband, me, and, most importantly, our 2-year-old child."
On Wednesday night, however, dozens of bikers gathered in a vigil outside St. Luke's in support of Edwin Mieses Jr. charging that the viral video many people are using to pass judgment did not show everything that happened on Sunday and argued that her husband acted dangerously, according to a CBS report.
"All bikers are not violent. All bikers are not gang members. All bikers are not out there starting trouble," noted one biker who gave his name only as Jose while calling for charges to be levied against Lien for injuring Mieses.
"He definitely should be charged. If he ran over your family he should be charged," he told CBS 2.
The Manhattan District Attorney's office is carefully examining the case before bringing charges. It declined prosecuting one suspect in the case, Allen Edwards of Queens, after he turned himself in to police.
"We are taking Sunday's crimes extremely seriously and will proceed with charges in a manner that enables us to build the strongest cases possible," noted Karen Friedman-Agnifilo, chief of the Trial Division that is handling the case in a statement.
"Prematurely charging individuals with low-level crimes does not further the goals of the investigation and could weaken the cases we expect to bring against the perpetrators of serious crimes. After we investigate the facts and each person's individual actions, we will know what charges can be supported by the evidence. There is still a tremendous amount of investigation to be done."
