A Queens father has filed a federal lawsuit accusing NYPD officers of deliberately steering a marked police vehicle into the path of a moped carrying his 14-year-old son, fracturing the boy's femur and leaving him handcuffed while he was being loaded into an ambulance. The crash happened near the intersection of 101st Street and Northern Boulevard in Corona, where the teen was riding as a passenger behind the moped's driver among a group of several other mopeds.
According to the lawsuit, filed by Mahmoud Saleh in Brooklyn federal court and detailed by the New York Daily News, officers from the 115th Precinct and the NYPD's Community Response Team were targeting the group of moped riders in a joint operation that evening. The suit claims a marked NYPD vehicle approached from the opposite direction with its lights and sirens switched off, then crossed the double yellow line on Northern Boulevard and swerved directly into the moped's path. The collision, the lawsuit alleges, rendered the 14-year-old passenger unconscious.
Saleh told the Daily News his son had simply gone out to get food with friends and said he expected to be home in 20 minutes. Instead, Saleh learned about the crash through an alert from a tracking app installed on his son's phone. He said his son suffered exposed bone and was handcuffed while still injured, and that officers later told him the boy would not be charged with any crime. The lawsuit states the teen received a CT scan and that his handcuffs were removed afterward, and that he ultimately sustained a fractured femur and a bruise to his head before being hospitalized.
Corona Crash Drew Conflicting Timelines
The Saleh family's case follows a previously reported July 30 Corona collision involving two 14-year-old boys whose moped struck a marked NYPD vehicle near the same stretch of Northern Boulevard and 101st Street. That crash was reported by qns.com to have occurred just before 7:30 p.m., with the moped traveling westbound and the NYPD vehicle traveling eastbound when they collided. PIX11, however, reported the same intersection's collision happened around 8:11 p.m. In that incident, qns.com reported, one of the 14-year-old boys was arrested and charged with reckless endangerment, and the NYPD's Internal Affairs Bureau opened an ongoing investigation.
The Saleh lawsuit centers on a collision near the same intersection as the July 30 incident. A NYPD spokesperson declined to say what officers were responding to that night or whether any arrests were made, according to the Daily News, and the agency said its internal investigation remains ongoing. The New York City Law Department declined to comment on the lawsuit.
Attorney Points to a Pattern
Saleh's attorney, Jon Norinsberg, said the maneuver described in the lawsuit could severely injure, paralyze, or kill someone. Norinsberg characterized the alleged tactic as an unwritten rule followed by officers, telling the Daily News that similar cases make it look like more than a coincidence. The lawsuit itself alleges the NYPD maintains an unwritten policy of using police vehicles to block, cut off, strike, or physically intercept two-wheeled vehicles — conduct that would run counter to the NYPD Patrol Guide, which prohibits ramming vehicles or placing a moving department vehicle where it could be struck by a pursued vehicle.
The case echoes an October 2025 lawsuit by Bronx moped rider Delonny Davis, who accused officers of deliberately crashing an unmarked police car into him during an August 2023 collision on East 2nd Street in Manhattan and then lying about it in official reports, a claim detailed by NBC New York. Surveillance video submitted by Davis's legal team appeared to show the police vehicle veering into a bike lane and initiating that collision.
The Samuel Williams Precedent
The lawsuit also arrives against the backdrop of a collision involving dirt-bike rider Samuel Williams and an unmarked Community Response Team vehicle in the Bronx. A report dated June 8 from New York Attorney General Letitia James' Office of Special Investigation said Officer Raymond Perez would not face criminal charges after crossing a double yellow line and moving into Williams' path. Investigators found that scene evidence could support that Williams accelerated and tried to squeeze past Perez's car, creating reasonable doubt as to criminal recklessness, even as James' office called the actions of Perez and another driver deeply troubling.
James' office said the vehicle maneuvers posed a clear risk to life and limb and caused Williams' death, while also finding no evidence that the NYPD permitted or trained officers to perform such maneuvers under those circumstances. A Department of Investigation report found that the Community Response Team lacked unit-specific policies and training.
NYPD's Pursuit Policy Rewrite
In January 2025, Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch overhauled the department's pursuit policy, and many pursuits of vehicles fleeing car stops would no longer be authorized. Per a statement from the NYPD, officer discretion to initiate a vehicle pursuit is now limited to only the most serious and violent crimes, identified as felonies and violent misdemeanors.
