Wenting Gu Bruises After Skate Attack View Full Caption

EAST WILLIAMSBURG — A woman who police say attacked members of a noted all-girl skate posse — dragging one by the hair and threatening others with a hammer, before one of them took the hammer and attacked her with it — said she was the real victim in the incident.

Wenting Gu, a 30-year-old photographer who was charged with misdemeanor assault, weapons possession and menacing charges after the Oct. 10 altercation, said police had little interest in her side of the story, handcuffing her to a pole inside the 90th Precinct station house and leaving her no choice but to pee on the floor when no one would take her to the bathroom, she said.

"I felt like an animal that day. It was very traumatizing." said Gu, who said she was covered in bruises after the attack.

The incident began some time after 2:30 p.m., when skaters from the all-women skate posse called The Skate Kitchen arrived to film a video below Gu's apartment near the intersection of Morgan Avenue and Johnson Avenue, according to police and prosecutors.

The group — which has been referred to as "New York's Coolest All-Girl Skate Crew" in Vogue, dubbed "fashion's favorite girl skateboarders" in the New York Times and praised in The Fader for bringing radical feminism back to skateboarding — were riding over a stairwell and landing on the metal doors to the basement below over and over again, making a loud banging sound, Gu said.

After about an hour, Gu, who was working at home that day, said she went outside to ask them to stop. The skaters left but then came back a few minutes later and started riding again, she said.

Gu said she came back outside and told the skaters she was going to call the police and grabbed onto the camera strap of one of the skaters who was filming the encounter so she wouldn't leave, she said.

"I was not touching her at all. I was holding her camera strap," Gu said. She said she recalled thinking, "I'm not gonna fight you because you are younger than me." Then the group of five skaters jumped her, she recalled.

"Five people started beating me," she said. Gu said somebody sprayed mace in her eyes and she could barely see for most of the attack.

Prosecutors and police said they have video of Gu grabbing an 18-year-old woman by the hair and dragging her across the sidewalk, while asking, "Don’t you wish you left now?”

A law enforcement source said they also have video of Gu holding a hammer during the fight.

Gu admitted she fought back — but said she only did so in self-defense. She denied having a hammer at any point during the attack.

Police and a law enforcement source said at the time of the incident that Gu threatened the crew with a hammer, and that Kabrina Adams, 23, grabbed it and used it to hit Gu on the back.

Police said at the time they were trying to determine who was the original aggressor in the incident.

Police arrested Adams — as well as Rachelle Vinberg, 18 and Michael Dworak, 20 — and gave them desk appearance tickets for assault and released them.

Meanwhile, Gu said she spent hours handcuffed to a hospital bed, the chained to a pole in the precinct, then finally taken to central booking and criminal court, which took about 24 hours, she said.

She was arraigned on misdemeanor charges and hit with an order of protection before being released without bail, according to court records.

"This is wrong. I was beat up in front of my own house," said Gu, who is due back in court on Dec. 7. "Why do I get locked away for a whole day?"

Adams and Vinberg declined to comment for this story. Dworak didn't respond immediately to a request for comment.

Police did not immediately respond to a request for comment.