YouTube The vehicle after it crashed into the bakery.
A road rage incident in Queens ended dramatically when a driver smashed his vehicle through a storefront after attempting to ram someone, and the entire incident was captured on video. The NYPD said that the situation took place on Monday at around 2 p.m. at 41-21 Kissena Boulevard in Flushing, near Main Street, according to the New York Post.
The altercation was between the driver and passenger of a BMW and the driver and passenger of a white Audi with New Jersey plates, the latter of which was double-parked on the road. The video shows the two groups fighting each other, with one of the men wielding a baseball bat, before the driver of the Audi gets into his vehicle and drives into the man with the bat before smashing through a storefront.
The video is available on YouTube below:
Four people were injured in the incident, Gothamist reported, and all were treated at area hospitals for minor injuries.
The Brawl Began on the Street Until One of the Men Got Into His Vehicle & Tried to Run Over Another
The video shows the brawl beginning with all four participants out of their vehicles and on the street, throwing punches and yelling at each other. One of the four can be seen wielding a baseball bat and swinging it at one of the men, who was identified as Jie Zou, 24, by the NYPD, Gothamist reported.
The video then shows Zou getting into the Audi and beginning to drive away, but the baseball-wielding man hits his car with the bat. The Audi driver then seems to accelerate directly into the man he’d been fighting with, according to the video footage. After ramming the man, his vehicle goes over the sidewalk and crashes through the storefront of Rainbow Bakery.
Zou and his passenger, 35-year-old Jonathan Zhang, were both charged with assault and Zou was also charged with reckless endangerment, Gothamist reported. According to CBS2, all four men will be charged in the road-rage incident.
The NYPD told the outlet that three women and a man were hospitalized with non-life-threatening injuries. Although Zou’s Audi has New Jersey plates, Gothamist reporter Jake Offenhartz tweeted that the NYPD said the driver is a resident of Flushing, Queens.
The Bakery, Which Was Celebrating Its Grand Opening, Was Destroyed
The owner of the bakery, John Lo, spoke to CBS2 about the incident, which happened on the same day as his grand opening. “It’s unbelievable, how a car can go that way,” he said, explaining that most of his equipment and merchandise were destroyed. He said he’ll have to replace the glass and an interior wall.
Lo also told CBS2 that one of his employees was injured in the incident by flying glass. “I’m so sad and I’m really worried about my employee. I’m really worried about my business, too.”
Witnesses described the chaos of the incident to the outlet, with Hailing Chen explaining: “It was a street fight and it escalated very quickly. And we see this car run into the store and people’s reaction was so shocked, people were so panicked.”
Another witness, Andy Chen, said, “Beat him up and tried to damage his vehicle. I think that’s why he got mad. He [made] a U-turn [with] his vehicle, drove up to the curbside and smashed into the bakery.”
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