Mass Protest Erupts Amid NYPD Scuffle

[Signal_W]

Hasids surround a police car last night after some smashed the window and threw flaming debris at it.

PATRICK GALLAHUE and JOE McGURK
Courtesy of The New York Post


An angry protest over the arrest of an elderly Hasidic man turned violent in Brooklyn last night, when throngs of irate residents lit fires on the street, clashed with cops and smashed the windows of a squad car.

At one point, more than 1,000 people flooded onto 16th Avenue between 45th and 48th streets in Borough Park, many pushing and shoving police.

Cops in riot gear struggled to hold back the mob as a firetruck shot water into the air to douse the many small trash fires.

The violence began at 6:30 p.m., when witnesses said neighborhood fixture Arthur Schick was leaving the bakery he used to own, Schick's, on 16th Avenue.

Schick, 75, was talking on his cellphone as he got into his car and started driving away, prompting officers to stop him, the witnesses said.

A cop asked for his license, but Schick, who's hard of hearing, couldn't understand and got out of the car, the witnesses said.

"He jumped out and before anything, they pushed him back into the car. They put him in handcuffs," said Leonard Rosenberg.

When Schick protested, two officers began using force, Rosenberg said.

"They were pushing him against the car," he said. "People were saying, 'Stop! Stop!' "

A Schick's employee, who wouldn't give her name, said the officers were "very, very rough with him. Everyone was screaming, 'He's just an old man!' "

Two passers-by, Chaim Gillig, 18, and Chaim Appel, 37, were arrested for scuffling with officers, cops said.

Gillig's mother said her son was pushed into one of the cops. "He was at the wrong place at the wrong time," she said.

Police gave a very different account of Shick's arrest.

An official said the cops were on their way to a crime scene when they got stuck behind the elderly man's car.

The driver was on his cellphone and refused to move even after the officers turned on their lights and sirens, the police official said.

When their emergency call was canceled, the officers confronted the man, who allegedly was "argumentative" and threw himself to the ground. He was charged with resisting arrest.

Schick, whose nephew Avi is an assistant to state Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, according to sources, was released late last night.

"It was a horrifying and harrowing experience," said his wife.

As word of the arrest spread, hundreds of residents began lighting fires and blocking traffic. Some smashed the window of two squad cars and threw burning debris on them.

Things quieted down by 9:30 p.m. Two officers had minor injuries, cops said.

Additional reporting by Meredith Woerner and Ed Robinson

patrick.gallahue@nypost.com

[Prometheus]

That wasn't a protest. That was a friggin' riot. And what the hell is wrong with these people? Don't they understand that its their taxes that will be used to fix everything they broke?

[Retdetsgt]

Schick, 75, was talking on his cellphone as he got into his car and started driving away, prompting officers to stop him, the witnesses said.

A cop asked for his license, but Schick, who's hard of hearing, couldn't understand and got out of the car, the witnesses said.

He can hear well enough to talk on a cell phone, but couldn't hear the officers when they ask him for his license?????

[FishTail]

Some people don't like what the police did so they go on a riot. Where's the sense in that? Hardly attracts sympathy to their complaint.