Undercover Officers Rode With Bikers
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The motorcyclist seen here who repeatedly smashed this car window using his helmet --</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They started hitting him with the helmet, right in the floor.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: According to police, he struck a motorcycle that had slowed in front of him.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There was a lot of blood all over the place.</s>MILLER: Why nobody came to their defense. And these cops didn`t help them. I mean, they acted out of panic.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: When the motorcyclists gave chase, eventually cornering the SUV and then beating and slashed Lien in front of his wife and 2-year-old daughter.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Two off-duty undercover cops who were riding with the bikers are now being questioned.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Why did it take so long for him to come forward? This happened on Sunday, he didn`t come forward until Wednesday.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He was compelled to report this immediately.</s>PINSKY: It`s hard to understand why they didn`t put a stop to this or why they didn`t report it right when it happened.</s>PINSKY: Welcome back. My co-host is Samantha Schacher. We`ve got a new twist in the road rage -- well, road rage isn`t really right. The attack on a SUV by a group of bikers in New York City. We`re now learning that an undercover cop did not just witness the attack, he apparently took part in it, actually pounding on the vehicle. Not clear whether he took part in the actual physical beating of the driver. This cop is reportedly under arrest. Joining us, Judge Young, Loni, Dean, and Emily. Dean, do you have a reaction to this?</s>OBEIDALLAH: Yes. I do. I live in New York City. And this is not the only time you have large groups of motorcycle drivers going through the streets. I can see 59th Street Bridge where I live. Two or three times every summer, there are literally hundreds of motorcycles that drive, that`s fine. But they block traffic themselves, intimidating drivers who pull off to the side of the road afraid for their own lives, frankly. And I haven`t seen any violence there, but afraid from 180, 100 motorcycles in the streets. There are 35,000 uniformed police officers in New York City. They should not be allowed on these streets.</s>PINSKY: Emily, have you heard any information about these cops involved in these beatings?</s>MILLER: It sounds like -- I mean, obviously, one is under arrest. You know, this is so -- this is very upsetting about this. It`s obviously, this is at least policeman`s misconduct. Now, it looks like criminal behavior. I spoke to law enforcement today, federal level and state level, and all said no matter what, they would have obviously not participated in this kind of thing, but even if they are just witnesses to it, they would have stopped it. There`s no undercover issue here. You`re seeing a man get beat to death, they would have jumped in. We do know that this cop was not armed and did not have his badge, but it`s still no excuse. I mean, any kind of person, any kind of conscience would have jumped in and helped --</s>MILLER: He should get charged.</s>PINSKY: let me throw -- and Loni, hold on a second and say, is there anybody on the panel who thinks that this was sort of like a fog of war where maybe one of his cops saw this guy run over and maybe nearly fatally injure somebody. It was like some sort of vigilante impulse. Loni, no?</s>LONI COOMBS, FORMER PROSECUTOR: No. I don`t have any sympathy for the police officers in the situation. And as soon as I heard that there were a UC, an undercover officer in this game, and then I heard that were other off-duty officers in this game, participating in this ride, I knew right then this was going to become a cluster. And sure enough, here it comes. A UC is sent in to an organization, whether it`d be a motorcycle gang or a drug gang because there is suspected criminal activity. They want this UC to go in --</s>PINSKY: Loni, I`m going to interrupt you, because I`m hearing -- I heard that the undercover was not part of --not trying to infiltrate this gang. He was just a civilian member of the gang who was an undercover cop in other operations.</s>COOMBS: OK. OK. Well, that helps, but then he tells --</s>MILLER: The facts are correct, though. You`re totally correct. This group of gang members, I mean, this motorcycle gang. They`ve all got arrests behind them. Half of them have been in jail. They`ve got gun crimes. They`ve got -- none of them should have been on the streets in the first place. I don`t know what these off-duty cops. We know at least one was hanging out with him -- that`s about.</s>SAMANTHA SCHACHER, SOCIAL COMMENTATOR: The off-duty cop lied about his involvement.</s>SCHACHER: Basically, why are you lying?</s>COOMBS: He first said, look, I didn`t do anything. I wasn`t close enough to help. And so, I was just trying to protect my identity, which, if he wasn`t in this gang that he didn`t need to protect his UC identity in this gang. And then you see on the video that he actually approached the car and groped the back window, which is why he`s charged with this mischief and he`s facing four to seven years depending on how much damage he did, how much the money is going to end up being. So this guy, not only is he doing something violent, but now, he`s lying about it. And this is a police officer. I mean, they need to do some housecleaning in their police department.</s>PINSKY: Judge Young, do you want to comment about this?</s>JUDGE DAVID YOUNG, FORMER CRIMINAL COURT JUDGE: Yes. I do. It doesn`t matter if you`re a judge, it doesn`t matter if you`re police officer or schoolteacher, that is what you are. You chose to do that. And just because you`re not on duty, that does not mean that you have to forget everything that you`re taught in the academy. You`re a police officer 24/7. And you have to remember, that in this case, you had a man and a woman and a two-year-old child. When they saw all of these bikers, they were scared for their lives. It would be, Dr. Drew, if I saw a bunch of hooter girls coming after me, I`d be panicked.</s>PINSKY: I`m a little confused, judge. But OK. Hooter girls attack. I want to show you guys a video of this attack that apparently surfaced just a few hours ago. Let`s see if we can show it up full screen here. Apparently, the driver is -- there it is. The driver is already on the ground, and they are stomping on him. You can see that. Bystander.</s>SCHACHER: It`s barbaric.</s>PINSKY: The bystander comes in and tries to help break things up. But the stomping of this seemingly defenseless guy.</s>YOUNG: The officer --</s>YOUNG: And he didn`t do it, and he deserves to be in jail.</s>PINSKY: Emily.</s>MILLER: And Dr. Drew, I said this last night, I will say it again. If Mike Bloomberg didn`t have such -- gun laws, these guys wouldn`t have known that that driver was not armed and couldn`t defend himself. And there were no police around. We know that.</s>MILLER: There`s no deterrent for criminals when they know no one`s armed.</s>PINSKY: I`m just going to Twitter to see -- I know Emily`s going to have - - it takes a couple minutes for people to sort of charge up on Twitter. So, I`m seeing what kind of tweets come through, but I know there`ll be a response to Emily and her polemic here. Even though --</s>MILLER: We went through this last --</s>PINSKY: Yes. We went through it last night. Go ahead. Finish up, then we`re going to go to break and I`ll bring up some tweets during the commercial. But go ahead, Emily.</s>MILLER: There`s fear with everybody about this shootout and these westerns, I heard that all day from my Twitter, my Facebook. Where? Guns are fully legal. We have eight million people in this country with carry permits. We have 300 million guns. Where are all these shootout the and wild west things happening? Are they happening in --</s>MILLER: -- Kansas, in Colorado. No. They`re happening with -- exactly, Chicago, which has the strictest gun control laws in the country.</s>PINSKY: All right. Leave it there.</s>YOUNG: Colorado?</s>SCHACHER: Yes. Colorado.</s>PINSKY: Listen, I`m not taking a position here, however, let`s remind ourselves that it`s people with --</s>MILLER: It`s the bad guys with the guns.</s>PINSKY: Not bad guys even. Some of the mass shootings we`ve had are people not connected to reality.</s>PINSKY: It gets complicated when we start talking about that, but hang on, I`m going to have to leave it right there. I`m going to bring in the "Behavior Bureau" to help me out with this. And later, a man plows his car into a crowd, actually coming out of funeral. Many are seriously injured. "Behavior Bureau" is going to look at that, too, and whether he should have even been on the road. We`re back in just a moment.</s>VINNIE POLITAN, HLN ANCHOR: Coming up top of the hour on "HLN After Dark," the next big trial, Utah versus Dr. Martin MacNeill accused of drowning his wife in the tub. Proseuctors say it was for his mistress, his mistress named Gypsy.</s>RYAN SMITH, HLN ANCHOR: So, our in-studio jury is all over it, but the bold question, was the doctor under gypsy`s spell?</s>POLITAN: We shall find out by the end of the hour. A verdict from our 12 jurors, "HLN After Dark."