This week, a migrant woman in front of a Manhattan shelter for asylum-seekers was detained after she slapped an NYPD officer who was trying to seize her unregistered motorcycle.
Several persons were apprehended on Thursday at West 71st Street and Broadway on the Upper West Side, near the Stratford Arms Hotel, which is being utilized as a migrant shelter, as police attempted to conduct a scooter crackdown.
Officers can be heard shouting, “Get back!, Get back,” to disperse the crowd before escorting a young man away from the bike and onto the pavement, where they tell him, “Bro, you’re going to get arrested.”
Around 10:30 p.m., Baibaia Rodriguez, 20, “hit an officer with an open hand,” prompting charges of resisting arrest, obstruction of governmental administration, and harassment.
Police said she was currently being kept at the Stratford Arms after being booked for felony assault in July following an incident on her partner in a Bronx residence.
West Side Rag was the first to report the incident and subsequent arrest.
Some residents of Stratford Arms have complained to city officials about the influx of trash, narcotics, and public disruptions they say they’ve experienced since the neighborhood’s new residents moved in, with the help of Joe Germanotta, the father of pop artist Lady Gaga.
“The worst part’s at night. The noise. It starts at about 10 o’clock, and it’ll go until 4 in the morning. Playing music and racing their motocross and motorbikes up and down the streets,” Germanotta, 66, told The Post last month.
The scooter blitz that occurred on Thursday was a response to “community complaints,” as stated by the police.
In addition to the nine bicycles that the NYPD claimed were illegally “chained to a pole,” West Side Rag stated that the police also seized four mopeds, one motorcycle, and one scooter.
