October 07, 2013
By Robert W. Hunnicutt
By now you have probably heard about the New York incident in which a businessman was dragged from his Range Rover and beaten by a mob of motorcyclists . The attack — which nicely combined elements of The Wild Angels and Bonfire of the Vanities — would have been media catnip regardless, but became a sensation when helmet-cam videos were posted on YouTube.
Check out the video from ABC News.
The story just keeps producing spicy tidbits, notably the fact that a half-dozen undercover New York police officers were among the hundreds of rampaging cyclists.
Now the New York Post has reported Reginald Chance, who was videotaped using his helmet to break out the Range Rover's window, has an impressive record of 21 arrests on various drug and robbery charges. Most recently, he was found to be in possession of cocaine, marijuana and a gun.
As the Post summarized it:
"Chance was busted and hit with gun and drug raps and faced more than 25 years prison.
"But Brooklyn prosecutors dropped the gun rap when Chance was indicted. A source said the charge was weakened by the fact that Chance — who allegedly admitted the pistol was his — had not been the target of the search for the gun.
"Under a sweetheart plea bargain overseen by Brooklyn Criminal Court Judge Suzanne Mondo, all the remaining felony drug charges against Chance were also dropped.
"He wound up with a one-year conditional discharge for misdemeanor pot possession and was given 20 days of community service."
If you are a longtime SGN reader, you will be completely unshocked by that piece of intelligence. New York politicians bloviate about getting tough on guns, but what they mean is getting tough on some 55-year-old NRA member in Canandaigua, not a drug dealer in Brooklyn. Gun charges are always the first ones to be dropped when a career criminal's in the dock. Don't think that leniency would apply to you , of course.
