A struggling immigrant cabbie and married dad of two who was savagely beaten by a group of brutes in Midtown told The Post on Friday he’s appalled that two suspects were let go with a slap on the wrist.
Taxi driver Afzal Butt, 60 — who suffered chest, neck and face injuries in the shocking Manhattan caught-on-camera beat-down — blasted New York’s lenient bail-reform laws as a “horrible system” after a pair of his alleged assailants were issued a desk-appearance ticket and allowed to walk free.
“If they’re not going to put them behind bars, this is a horrible system,” fumed the cabbie, who emigrated to the US from Pakistan and has been driving a taxi since 2004. “I am hopeless and helpless with this system.”
Butt said the city is going to hell in a handbasket regarding crime.
“Send the mayor the video and tell him die with the shame,” the cabbie said.
Butt, who has two adult children and lives with his wife in Upper Manhattan, said he got into an argument with a group of five people on Sixth Avenue and West 34th Street on July 19.
Butt had been pulling over to clean up food that an unrelated crew of scooter drivers tossed into his car when the group accused him of nearly hitting them, he said.
“They were walking by and saying that I was going to run over them,” he said. “I was just trying to clean my car.
“Then this lady and this boy started breaking my side window. She broke it. They started assaulting me,” he said, adding that three more people joined in.
“They were all hitting me and kicking me, everywhere on my body, my face,” Butt said.
Disturbing video footage shows three women and two men punching the cabbie and hitting him with a shoe as he falls to the ground.
Butt is then seen cowering next to his car and covering his face as a woman continues to kick him.
“My eye socket was swollen. I was dizzy and lightheaded,” the victim said.
“There’s so much pain in my neck. I still can’t move my neck. My arms, my knees, my hips. My chest felt like I was getting pressure on my chest. So much pain.”
Butt was taken to a hospital, and two suspects — 35-year-old Howard Colley and 51-year-old Natalie Morgan — were arrested, according to police.
On Friday, police released photos of the three suspects who remain at large: an approximately 5-foot-5 heavy-built woman with her hair in a bun; a 5-foot-8 woman with long, braided hair; and a 5-foot-10 man with an athletic build.
Police charged Colley with misdemeanor assault, and Morgan landed a rap of criminal mischief, according to police sources.
Both were issued desk-appearance tickets by cops and let go because the charges were misdemeanors and the suspects had zero or no serious criminal history, sources said.
Even if the suspects were put through the court system, they wouldn’t have gotten bail because nearly all misdemeanors are not eligible for bail, sources said. Even with recent revisions, the suspects wouldn’t have been given bail because they have no serious criminal past, sources said.
“If you’re angry, be angry at the criminal justice reforms — no criminal history and a misdemeanor, you have to issue [desk appearance tickets],” a police source said.
Butt was outraged.
“Everyone is disrespecting yellow-cab drivers,” Butt said.
“This is a job that there is no day when I’m driving that nobody curses at me,” he said. “The scooter guys … one of them stop next to me and hit my car. … I tried to avoid. I pulled a little bit up to let them. But again they came next to me — I rolled down my window to ask them, ‘What happen, why you hitting my car?’ They threw all their food inside my car.
“Everything was littered. Gravy on my shirt, in my eyes. It took me almost three hours to clean the car inside,” Butt said.
Additional reporting by Joe Marino and Tina Moore
