Real Car Crushing Incident

10:58 PM 1/1/1996 Driver in custody for running over Boston spectators BOSTON (AP) -- A couple trying to drive away from a New Year's fireworks display rammed their car into a crowd, injuring 21 spectators, police said. Two people were seriously injured. The woman, who is 6 1/2 months pregnant, said she and her boyfriend were attacked by the mob as they tried to leave the crowded waterfront in their car. She said they hit the pedestrians only because they were trying to flee. Anthony Brooks, 26, of Malden, faces multiple charges of assault with intent to murder, and assault and battery with a dangerous weapon, police Sgt. John Greland said. Brooks, who was held for arraignment today, was not drunk, but did not have a license to drive, Greland said. "He made statements to the fact he was going to drive over these people and that's exactly what he did," Greland said. "He drove right into the crowd and he floored it." Police said 21 people were injured by the car. Three people were in fair condition at Massachusetts General Hospital on Monday evening, one with a crushed pelvis, one with a broken leg and another with burns. Brooks' girlfriend, Antoinette Labord, was taken to the maternity ward at New England Medical Center with contractions and a bloody nose. She said she planned to complain to the NAACP about the way the police handled the case. "I felt fists hitting me in face, hitting me in the stomach -- I'm 6 1/2months pregnant," she said Monday evening from the hospital. "He tried to cover me with his body, he tried to cover me up with his leather jacket, yelling, `Stop, my lady is pregnant. Stop!' "We feared for our lives and he moved over to the driver's side and I moved over to his seat," she said. "It was more like self-defense. He did what he had to do to protect his family, but the police are making him out to be some madman." Police said Brooks put the car into reverse and ran over a person, pinning him under a wheel. Brooks then put the car into drive and ran into the other people, police said. When police got there, they found enraged bystanders trying to tear Brooks out of his car. The 1995 Chevy Cavalier was damaged, its windows smashed. "There were probably 10 or 12 people on top of the car, kicking it, punching it, smashing the windows," Greland said. "If we hadn't been there, they would have killed him. If they could have got him out of the car, he was a dead man." Police spokesman Jim Browning was uncertain if the street had been blocked off for the fireworks over Boston Harbor. He said investigators still were piecing together what led to the melee. Labord said the couple had been eating at a restaurant on the waterfront. They emerged to find the street thronged with spectators awaiting the First Night fireworks and laser show. Labord, who said she was initially behind the wheel, said she spent about 10 minutes beeping her horn, flashing her highbeams and inching forward as the couple attempted to leave the wharf. Then suddenly people started to pound on the car, she said. A bottle smashed through the rear window and people in the crowd started attacking her and Brooks and bloodied her nose. "People just ran and tried to get out of the way, falling all over each other," said Brian Robertson, whose girlfriend,Melissa Doron, suffered second-degree burns when her right foot was caught under a spinning wheel. "People were on top of me and I couldn't move," Doron, 18, said from her Danvers home. "Then the car started coming toward me -- it stopped in front of us and my foot was wedged under the tire. He stepped on the gas and the tire just started spinning and burned a hole through my boot and sock into my foot." Robertson, 19, managed to pull her away onto the sidewalk. Labord said that as police were handcuffing Brooks, a man beat and spat on her. She said police arrested the man when he tried to run away, but told Labord she could not file charges unless she could identify him or the other people who destroyed her car. Browning said he didn't know about any other arrests.