Rich on many levels.
2025Updated 1:35 p.m. ET
A man on a motor scooter is cruising the wrong way down a Lower Manhattan bike lane, a video shows, when an unmarked police car swerves into his path. The car hits him head on. He is thrown over the hood, lands in the street and loses consciousness.
The man, Delonny Davis, came to as officers handcuffed him, according to a lawsuit filed Wednesday in Manhattan federal court. After he was seen by medics and taken to a police precinct, Mr. Davis, now 40, was charged with infractions, including reckless driving.
The officers who hit him on Aug. 28, 2023, were members of a special Police Department unit called the Community Response Team, the suit said. The unit was assigned to respond to quality-of-life complaints like illegal motorbikes and street vendors.
In police and court documents, the officer who drove the car claimed he had been heading straight west on East Second Street and had tried to avoid Mr. Davis, who he said slammed into the vehicle. The surveillance video that captured the crash contradicts that claim.
Video
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Surveillance video provided by Mr. Davis’s lawyers shows him driving the wrong way down a bike lane and colliding with an unmarked police car that swerved into his path. Mr. Davis survived the crash.CreditCredit...Andrew G. Celli Jr. and Wylie Stecklow
In Mr. Davis’s lawsuit, which names as defendants the officers, the city and two police officials who created the unit, he claims the police used excessive force and charged him without justification. He also accuses the officers of lying.
The Police Department said the incident was “under review and the disciplinary process is ongoing.” The city’s Law Department declined to comment.
The suit underscores the culture of the Police Department from 2022 to 2024, when its leaders, backed by Mayor Eric Adams, encouraged officers to use aggressive tactics like high-speed pursuits to stop low-level crimes. Police officials saw motorbikes as a scourge in neighborhoods where residents had been complaining about bikes, ATVs and mopeds speeding down streets, weaving through traffic and endangering pedestrians.
The collision in the East Village occurred during a time in the department when officers were encouraged to crack down on motorists accused of violating even minor traffic laws, according to the lawsuit.
“Officers were told to intentionally drive into, in front of or dangerously near other motor vehicles as a means of restraining their operators,” the lawsuit says.
Commissioner Jessica S. Tisch, who took over the department in November 2024,
quickly issued an order forbidding high-speed pursuits, except of drivers who had committed the “most serious and violent crimes.”
According to the suit, Mr. Davis was driving west in a traffic lane when he passed a store where he had meant to have his cellphone repaired. Realizing he had gone too far, he turned and drove the short distance back in the bike lane, the suit says.
When his scooter was hit, Mr. Davis’s head cracked the windshield of the police vehicle, according to the lawsuit. It says that after he regained consciousness, he complained of dizziness as well as pain in his legs, arms, ribs and neck, but the police would not let him go to the hospital.
Mr. Davis’s suit does not dispute that he was driving the wrong way in the bike lane — one of several traffic offenses he was charged with. (He pleaded guilty to operating a motor vehicle without a license.) The lawsuit argues that the infractions did not justify the ramming of his scooter.
“Intentionally cutting off and colliding with plaintiff was a gratuitous use of force that was vastly out of proportion to any danger,” the suit says.
Mr. Davis’s lawyers said in a statement that the video of the episode, a copy of which they provided to The New York Times, was critical to their client’s case.
“Surveillance video is the great equalizer: It shows the truth and — when it’s clear — it settles all disputes,” said the lawyers, Andrew G. Celli Jr. and Wylie Stecklow.
The Community Response Team was established to address low-level infractions with vigor. The team, whose members wore dark polo shirts and khaki pants and rode in unmarked cars, became known for its aggressive approach, which was celebrated by Mr. Adams and some department leaders even as other officials grew alarmed.
In July 2023,
The City reported that the unit had contributed to a nearly 600 percent increase in high-speed chases, with some resulting in serious injuries and even two deaths.
John Chell, then the department’s chief of patrol, was unapologetic.
“People thinking they can take off on us? Those days are over,” he said at a news conference that month.
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November 2024 report by the city’s Department of Investigation faulted the team for its lack of transparency. The report said there were no written policies or procedures guiding the unit, or even requirements that officers complete specialized training before joining. The Police Department
accepted most of the report’s recommendations.
In March 2025, about three months after Ms. Tisch became commissioner, she told the City Council that the department was moving away from the Community Response Team model and instead creating “quality-of-life” teams that would operate out of precincts and be overseen by commanders there.
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