A rowdy car meetup in Queens turned violent when a man and his wife were attacked and exploding fireworks set a vehicle on fire, police said.
The melee erupted about 12:30 a.m. Sunday after dozens of drivers gathered for a meetup that included drag racing, performing donuts and other stunts near 141st St. and 11th Ave. in Whitestone, cops said.
Some members of the group started breaking bottles and setting off fireworks that ignited a parked and unoccupied gray Ford Fusion.
As firefighters were putting out the blaze, 50-year-old Blake Ferrer emerged from his home and told the revelers to get off his property.
Within minutes, the crowd turned on him and Ferrer found himself at the center of a vicious beatdown, his wife told the Daily News.
“There were over 50 cars right on my block, in all different directions, four to six people getting out of each car to go watch the drag racing and lighting a car on fire,” said Melissa Ferrer. “We were just trying to get people to leave and get off our property. We shouldn’t have confronted all these people. They were young and ended up attacking us.”
“I was fighting people off to protect my husband and my house,” she added. “He has fractures all over his body. One person punched me.”
Fearing arrest, the crowd dispersed after thrashing Blake, his wife said.
“Once my husband was down, they knew not to go further or else they would have killed him,” Mellisa Ferrer said. “They scattered and went in the cars.”
Medics rushed the husband, who suffered a broken nose and ribs, to New York-Presbyterian Hospital Queens in stable condition. His wife declined medical treatment.
City Councilwoman Vickie Paladino (R-Queens) in a post on X blamed “a large group of individuals from outside my district.”
She said similar meetups have happened there in the past and that the Sunday incident prompted a “less than ideal” police response, with residents telling her they were told their calls for help would be handled by the 109th Precinct’s Quality of Life team of officers.
“Unacceptable,” she wrote. “In fact, these violent street takeovers should be met with maximum force by the police department. We have NEVER had these problems before. Now it’s an epidemic. What changed? We stopped arresting criminals.”
An NYPD spokeperson said the NYPD Chief of Patrol for Borough Queens North met with Paladino and local residents on Sunday and that patrols will be increased in the neighborhood.
The spokesperson noted it was a busy night in the precinct and cops were responding to multiple high-priority incidents, including a DWI arrest, a hospital transport and a crash with injuries. The car meetup incident was escalated to a criminal mischief case as more information came in and a patrol supervisor then arrived on scene about 10 minutes later, the spokesperson said.
