Cops injured in Midtown brawl after teen hit by taxi

Five cops and two teenagers were injured in a wild Midtown melee Thursday after a teenager was hit by a taxi near Manhattan High School, according to authorities and witnesses.

When police got to the scene at West 52nd Street and Eighth Avenue around 2:30 p.m., the crowd went after the cops, and officers used pepper spray to gain control.

Police said they were unsure Thursday night if the mob went after the taxi that hit the teen as well, but another cabbie said the teens descended on his vehicle, stomped it and tried to drag him out into the street.

“People are just jumping on my car,” cabbie Badal Roy said. “Suddenly three, four guys punched my car and I didn’t say anything. And then four, five guys come up and start jumping and then I called the police…. I locked my door.”

At least one of the teen combatants was sent to the hospital after being pepper sprayed by the cops, police said.

Raheem Ford, who watched the unfolding fracas from his apartment, said the scene got more and more violent as more officers got to the scene.

“I tried to break up the crowd and tell them to stop, ‘You don’t need to be in jail right now,’ I told some of them,” said Ford, 60. “The kids were talking out their mouth too. And I’m just like, this is going to turn violent. Just everything going on with police brutality, I wanted to interject.”

The unidentified teen who was hit by the cab, sparking the riot, also became violent with police and the ambulance crew that transported him to Roosevelt Hospital, sources told The Post.

Three of the injured cops were treated at the scene, and two were transported to the hospital with minor injuries.

No arrests have been reported but police are still investigating the incident.