That’s one way to drive home your message.
Police drove bulldozers over more than 70 confiscated dirt-bikes and all-terrain vehicles at a Red Hook tow pound on Tuesday, in a public demolition derby the city’s top cop says he hopes serves as a warning to the daredevils who ride the banned bikes around the city’s streets.
“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, and housing developments of the city of New York, creating extraordinary dangers not only for themselves but for the public,” said Commissioner Bill Bratton.
Bratton said the flattened vehicles represent just a fraction of the more than 600 illegal bikes the officers have seized this year.
It would be counterproductive for the department to sell the confiscated rides to raise money, he claimed, given they’re illegal in New York and all — that would be like selling black-market guns back onto the streets — but the department does reap 2 cents per pound for the scrap metal.
