Wild video shows the moment a half-dozen Bronx cops tried in vain to stop a car thief as he used a stolen van as a battering ram, continually smashing it into parked cars as he tried to escape.
The mayhem unfolded on Bainbridge Avenue in Fordham Manor around 6:20 pm on Aug. 17, when Edwings Irizarry allegedly tore off in a stolen 2009 white Ford van after shoving aside the vehicle’s 33-year-old owner, according to police.
The harrowing one-and-a-half minute clip begins as Irizarry, 45, repeatedly backs up and rams the van into a pair of parked cars, while a half-dozen cops attempt to put the brakes on his getaway.
One repeatedly beats the thief’s arm with his fist and baton through the driver’s side window, while other officers crowd around the vehicle, video shows.
“Get out the car! Get out the car!” cops shout.
After creating an opening between the wrecked cars, Irizarry slams the gas pedal and peels out — narrowly missing a pedestrian, video shows.
Only an unmarked NYPD car is able to give chase, as the other police cruiser had been blocked by at least two battered vehicles clogging the road.
“How are you going to move it, you f—ing idiot?” one person hollered in Spanish. Another shouted for another to call an ambulance, although it was not clear if anyone had been seriously injured.
Cops later arrested Irizarry and slapped him with a series of felony charges including grand larceny auto, reckless endangerment, and fleeing an officer in a stolen vehicle, according to police.
Despite the thief threatening the public and police’s safety, cops likely would have been the ones behind bars if they shot the driver or caused an accident by tasing him, retired NYPD Lt. John Macari told The Post.
“They’re so heavily scrutinized that they cannot deploy deadly physical force at that moment, even though they are being presented with deadly physical force by an operator using that vehicle,” he said.
Macari added that the driver likely had zero concern about injuring the cops or public because criminal justice reform legislation in New York “has removed consequences.”
On Sunday, a brazen 19-year-old driver hit a cop in Queens with a stolen sedan and then ran away, culminating in a rooftop chase that ended with his arrest, police said.
The NYPD did not respond to a query about Irizarry’s prior arrests.