Re: CHAOS ON THE WEST SIDE HIGHWAY: Wild pack of motorcycling madmen chase family in
Biker organizer taunted cops… from mom’s house
The profile photo for the @hollywoodstuntz Twitter page. A neighbor says it's biker organizer Lao on the bike.
The organizer of the wild motorbike rally that terrorized a West Side family runs a website taunting the NYPD — from the safety of his mommy’s home in Queens, The Post has learned.
Jamie Lao, 29, has been orchestrating the annual group “crotch rocket” rides through city streets since at least 2007 through his now-suspended websites, HollywoodStuntz.net and Blockstarzent.net, which are registered to his parents’ Ozone Park home.
This year’s motorcycle rager led to the beatdown of Alexian Lien in front of his horrified wife and toddler.
Leo bragged just before a 2010 event that he had “no worries from the NYPD” and has posted scores of YouTube videos showing hundreds of bikers tearing down city streets en masse, popping wheelies and revving their engines as they go, with nary a cop in sight.
Lao’s Twitter account, @hollywoodstuntz, features a picture of a rider on a blue Yamaha, its front wheel raised defiantly to the sky with an NYPD squad car in the background.
A neighbor said it is Lao in the photo.
“It’s not his fault,” Lao’s dad, Juan, said of Sunday’s violence, defending his son, who scampered through a back entrance of the home Thursday and hid in the house to avoid a reporter.
Apparently more comfortable behind a computer screen, Lao hit Facebook, Twitter and forums like bikenightusa.com, stuntlife.com and stuntride.com, urging bikers across the country to attend his annual “Hollywood’s Block Party” and “tear up the streets.”
Asked if his son was involved in the incident, Juan Lao said Jamie didn’t attend, adding “you’re just wasting your time.”
But several neighbors said the rally started at the Lao’s two-family house on 103rd Avenue.
“There was about 300-400 bikes,” said one neighbor who asked not to be named. “It’s disturbing to see 300 bikes, the neighbors were terrified. All the smoke went into the houses. Everybody was traumatized.”
Another said bikers congregated at the Lao’s “all day long.”
“They were very noisey and they were on top of the cars and everywhere. It was terrible.”
“Oh my god I hate them. For the past 4-5 years he’s been an absolute nuisance. They are annoying as hell,” said neighbor Jennifer Rodriguez, 36. She claims Lao and his biker buddies have terrorized her family.
“It’s been a nightmare. My mom is handicapped and my dad has a heart condition,” she said. “They [bikers] will go up to her and like play chicken, trying to scare her.”
“Sunday the whole street was covered,” Rodriguez said. “They cover all the sidewalks. People with kids and with dogs, they go right up to them like they are trying to scare them. You can’t say anything or else they will start a fight. I had to go out on Sunday and I had to wait 20 minutes until they left.”
“They scratch cars, they bump into them, they have no regard.”
Retired firefighter Distinio Lois, 77, defended Lao.
“He’s a good kid. He’s a motorcycle enthusiast. I have known the family for years, they are good, hard working people,” Distinio said. “You can’t help if there is a bad apple in the group. If a friend did what they did, he’s not responsible. You can’t turn around the blame if he’s the head [of the rally.]“
“They never bother anybody,” he said of the bikers that come to the house every year. “They are respectful, they don’t leave anything behind. It’s just a social gathering until they go away.”
On his website, Lao brags that he is “on his way to stardom” and calls his events an opportunity to “show off the most insane stunts the thousands of bystanders have ever seen.”
A YouTube video of Lao’s 2012 NYC rally depicts hundreds of bikers – men and women – on motorcycles and three-wheeled ATVs speeding through Midtown in broad daylight, weaving through both lanes of traffic, popping wheelies and blowing through red lights as stunned pedestrians gaped from the sidewalks.
This year, cops — who confirmed that Hollywood Stuntz organized Sunday’s terror ride — were waiting for the mob and prevented them from taking over Times Square, busting several and confiscating a number of motorcycles.
Lao also posted footage of a Halloween ride from last year, where riders roared from Brooklyn to Manhattan, hogging roads and swerving dangerously close to cars.
Neighbors said they didn’t see the NYPD outside Lao’s house Sunday – but cops did make a stop at Charlie’s Chop Shop, an Astoria motorcycle shop where Lao and his pals, including rapper Meek Mills, are regulars.
On Thursday, Charlie’s had its gates pulled down and appeared closed, but bikers and mechanics were in and out of the store.
“There were dozens of cops here on Sunday,” said Jimmy Katsaros, 50, who works next door at GoPro, a plumbing firl. “They pulled in looking to check out the chop shop…There were guys on bikes right outside and they sped off.
“They didn’t want any part of those cops.”
“This is very bad for everyone involved,” said another GoPro worker. “It’s all wrong.”
Henry Jiang, 21, pulled up to Charlie’s on his Kawasaki Ninja 300. He said he isn’t affiliated with the Hollywood Stuntz crew, but defended them and blamed the road rage on Lien.
“The media has been spinning it in a way that makes all motorcyclists look bad,” he said.
“The entire situation could have been handled differently. I don’t roll with that crew [Hollywood Stuntz] but I feel that they shouldn’t be labeled as thugs because of a few bad apples. The biker that got the most hurt was innocent.
“ You shouldn’t judge a person because they are on a bike. There are lots if reckless drivers in cars too.”
“I feel that most of the fault was with the driver of the SUV. Maybe it could have all been talked out. He didn’t have to hit the gas and take out everyone. That was reckless.”
Additional reporting by Kirstan Conley and Bob Fredericks
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lawyer fees, court appearances...
free publicity I guess
