Wild UES Chase Ends in Crash, Gunpoint Robbery: Witnesses

A wild car chase through part of the Upper East Side Saturday afternoon ended with multiple cars and trucks smashed over the span of just two blocks, an SUV up on the sidewalk and a gunpoint robbery in broad daylight next to a busy Yorkville park, eye witnesses tell Upper East Site.

It was around 4:40 pm when witnesses say they saw the silver Toyota RAV4 racing southbound down Second Avenue, being chased by a black Mercedes sedan. Near East 93rd Street, witnesses say one of the vehicles crashed into a box truck, sending it slamming into UPS truck, which then hit a third truck. 

Then just two blocks south, in front of Knickerbocker Plaza between East 91st and 92nd Streets, witnesses tell Upper East Site the black Mercedes rammed the RAV4 multiple times.

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At one point, both vehicles were driving north against traffic on Second Avenue, when the SUV was finally hit and spun around as it jumped the sidewalk, then raced to get away– sending pedestrians on the sidewalk running for their lives.

“We all ran back inside,” one man, still visibly shaken up by what he saw, told Upper East Site.

“We thought it was coming for us. It was scary. It was very scary”

Witnesses say they saw the driver of the SUV, identified by investigators as a 56-year-old man, hop out and run away from the crash scene. After that, a man armed with gun got out of the Mercedes and went to up the RAV4, witnesses say, banging on the window, apparently trying to break it, before retrieving a black bag from inside the vehicle.

Police confirm to Upper East Site that cash was taken in the dramatic broad daylight robbery, but did not say how much.

The gunman with the black bag in hand got back in the Mercedes, its front end mangled from the crash, then sped off southbound on Second Avenue. 

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The smashed up Mercedes was found dumped by the suspects on East 86th Street near Third Avenue a short time after the Second Avenue wreck.

The driver of the SUV came back to his vehicle after the gunmen took off, witnesses tell us, and was later seen in the back of an ambulance speaking with NYPD officers.

A large crowd gathered at the scene after the wreck, some drawn from Ruppert Park and James Cagney Plaza, just steps away from the mayhem on East 91st Street.

Upper East Site reached out to the NYPD, but no further information was immediately available.  

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