Article: Death Chase Described In Howard Beach Trial;Participant Testifies in Return for Leniency

In a thick, monotone Queens accent, Robert Riley described today how he and his friends chased a black man to the edge of the Belt Parkway in Howard Beach last December, testifying that he heard a loud "thud" and saw the man's body "go up a couple of feet in the air" when he was struck by a passing car.

Riley, 18, the prosecution's chief witness at his friends' trial, said that he and four other white teen-agers had pursued Michael Griffith to a roadside guard rail and that Griffith ran "straight onto the Belt Parkway" where he was hit.

Riley said the chase began several blocks earlier when he and his high school friends confronted three black men outside a pizzeria and ran after them, ...

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