nothin Dirt Bikers’ Victim Left Busted, Disgusted | New Haven Independent

Dirt Bikers’ Victim Left Busted, Disgusted

Markeshia Ricks Photo

From her Orchard Street apartment Sherry Bryant has for years seen groups of masked dirt bike riders popping wheelies on the street on summer evenings. She got a closer look recently when a couple of those bikes and their riders slammed into her.

The collision occurred one night three weeks ago at about 11:20. Bryant was headed out on her bright red moped. She was waiting at a red light at the intersection of Elm and Orchard. As soon as the light turned green, she pulled forward with plans of turning left.

Seconds later, she said, she was hit from one side by a dirt bike. The force of the hit knocked her and her moped into incoming traffic, forcing drivers to stop.

That wasn’t the end. Another dirt bike, going the wrong way, roared through the intersection where she was on the ground, hitting the rear end of her moped.

The riders, who were masked, sped away.

I landed on my face,” she said in an interview the other day. My knees were all torn up and bleeding.”

She wasn’t just injured, but robbed, as well. While she was laying in the street, a man on a 10-speed bike rode up and scooped up her debit card, a cell phone, and other small personal items that went flying when she was hit.

Bryant said she remembers talking to the police and emergency medical technicians. She said there was a witness at the scene, possibly a food delivery driver whose car was also was hit by one of the dirt bikes. But she doesn’t remember much else about her ambulance ride to Yale-New Haven Hospital’s Saint Raphael campus.

What she does know is that she hast a nagging pain her shoulder, some residual pain in her face, a busted moped, and no recourse against having been injured by two people who were illegally using dirt bikes on city streets.

New Haven Police spokesman David Hartman said the challenge in a case like Bryant’s is that she was unable to identify the people who hit her. The riders got away on black and red bikes. But in the off chance that she saw the bikes again, she told police, she could not identify the riders. Neither could her eyewitness. There was no mention in the police report about Bryant’s missing phone or debit card, Hartman said.

So even if the cops managed to catch the riders somehow, there is no evidence that would hold up in court.

It ends there for us,” Hartman said of the case.

Dirt bikers have been terrorizing New Haven all summer, an annual problem. Police worked hard to address the problem. They had success in shutting down a Bike Life” gathering at the end of August when they got word through social media that possibly a few hundred illegal dirt bike riders had plans to converge on New Haven streets. Through a coordinated effort with cops from neighboring towns, cops were able to confiscate bikes and ATVs and also make several arrests. (Read more about that here.)

Bryant said in the meantime, she’s stuck with doctor’s bills and pain. Though it still might not have helped in her case, she said that there should be a better way of tracking and establishing ownership of dirt bikes as soon as someone purchases them. She said that way, when someone is caught doing something illegal with it, like riding on a city street, the cops know whom to talk to about that bike.

If you can purchase a dirt bike here, then you should have to register it with the police,” she said.

Bryant shows her busted wheels.

Bryant said even if she gets her moped fixed, she’s now nervous about riding it. She gets even more nervous when she hears that telltale growl of a dirt bike in the neighborhood.

I don’t know what their motives were,” she said. But they took me down. I have kids to live for and that accident could have changed my life.”

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