RED HOOK — Police Commissioner Bill Bratton said the NYPD “crushed it” after they destroyed dozens of seized dirt bikes and ATVs with bulldozers Tuesday afternoon.
Two bulldozers ran over 70 off-road vehicles that were confiscated by police and stored at the department's Red Hook compound. The NYPD has been cracking down on people joyriding the unlicensed vehicles through the streets of New York.
“We want to send out a very strong message to the nitwits and knuckleheads who insist on operating these illegal vehicles on the streets, sidewalks, parks, housing developments in the city of New York,” Bratton said before the crushing.
Seizures were up 96 percent so far this year compared to 2015, Bratton said, and there were more than 600 confiscated bikes and ATVs at the Erie Basin Auto Pound on Columbia Street Tuesday.
There have been zero deaths related to ATVs and off-road bikes so far this year, but five people were killed in 2015, according to police.
The #NYPD crushed dozens of seized dirt bikes and ATVs at their Red Hook, Brooklyn pound. @DNAinfo pic.twitter.com/IRRJF7jgr1
— Ben Fractenberg (@fractenberg) May 17, 2016
Bratton said the NYPD did not want to resell working bikes because “they’re illegal” for use in the city.
“We don’t want to resell them and put them back into the hands of people who use them inappropriately,” he said.
Police plan on selling the scrap metal from the destroyed bikes.
