Nov 18, 2009 6:08 am US/Eastern
VP Biden's Advance Team In West Side Crash
Witness: Livery Cab Cut Off Unmarked Police Car Escorting Vice President's Motorcade To 'Daily Show' Taping
Crash Is The Third Involving Biden's Detail In Last Week
NEW YORK (CBS) ―
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This is what was left of an unmarked police care that was escorting Vice President Joe Biden's motorcade to a taping at the studios for "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart" on Nov. 17, 2009, in New York City.
CBS
CBS 2 HD has learned three people, including two members of Vice President Joe Biden's advance team, suffered minor injuries in a West Side car accident on Tuesday evening.
The two-car crash happened at approximately 5:40 p.m. at 49th Street and 10th Avenue. The victims and a police officer were taken to Roosevelt and New York hospitals.
Three unmarked police vehicles, with their lights and sirens on, were traveling 5 to 10 minutes ahead of the motorcade on Manhattan's West Side and were checking traffic before Biden passed en route to his appearance on "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart," chief police spokesman Paul Browne said.
The cars were going through an intersection when the second one collided with a livery cab around 5:40 p.m. Traffic had stopped for the police, but the livery cab driver pulled out around the line of vehicles and was trying to go through the intersection, police said.
According to witness Shanikqa Farmer, a tourist from Jacksonville, Fla., the livery cab caused the accident.
"What I saw was the Secret Service and the limos coming down 49th, and a few seconds later we saw the police emergency vehicles zooming down 49th," Farmer said. "And then we get to the corner and we see the two cars right here and they was trying to pull them out of the cars.
"I say it was the cab driver's fault. I come to that conclusion because you see everyone else had to be stopped on this side and he saw a way to zoom across real quick, and got messed up. These cab drivers in NYC, they drive reckless. He thought he could get across real fast, but that wasn't the case."
A passenger in the livery cab refused medical attention at the scene. The cab driver and two police officers were examined at a hospital and were released.
The police vehicles had been sent out as a routine patrol ahead of Biden, and the motorcade was not involved, Browne said. Secret Service spokesman Darrin Blackford said the motorcade continued on its route.
It was the third incident involving Biden staffers in the last week.
On Nov. 11 in Washington D.C., a pedestrian was killed after a crash involving the vice president's motorcade. Then on Monday a sheriff's deputy was injured in an incident involving Biden's motorcade in Albuquerque, N.M.
Please stay with CBS 2 HD and wcbstv.com for more on this developing story.
(© 2010 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)
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