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David Litvintchouk, 17, agreed.

"They were grabbing and twisting his arms. They kept tightening the cuffs and he was yelling, 'You're breaking my arm! You're breaking my arm!' "

Two men tried to interfere with the bust - one allegedly jumping on a cop's back - and ended up under arrest themselves. Witnesses said enraged Hasidim surrounded a nearby squad car, and cops in riot gear quickly swarmed in.

As rumors spread through the crowd that Schick had been beaten, tensions escalated and hundreds of people in traditional black garb poured onto 16th Ave. from 46th to 50th Sts. They set fire to old magazines, fruit boxes and other trash up and down the avenue.

Firefighters raced to put out at least seven blazes and water down the streets.

Demonstrators smashed the windows of one police cruiser and torched another by throwing a gasoline-soaked rag into its backseat. A helicopter searchlight swept the street, and riot police formed lines along 16th Ave., hollering, "Back on the sidewalk!"

But protesters didn't heed the warnings and ran through the streets, some yelling, "Nazi Germany!" at the officers.

"I started running, too. I was almost knocked over," said Esther Kroynik, 20, who had to scale a waist-high fence to avoid the mobs.

It took scores of cops four hours to restore order, but the arrest toll stayed at three. Two officers suffered leg injuries in the melee, a police source said.

Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly visited the 66th Precinct stationhouse and spoke with representatives of the Hasidic community.

In the midst of the mayhem, Schick's Bakery attempted to continue filling Pbuttover orders, and a tractor-trailer trying to drop off food became trapped on the street.

The incident that sparked the disturbance occurred when officers responding to a robbery spotted Schick stopped at a red light in his Cadillac and talking on his cell phone, a police source said.

After the uniformed cops were called off the robbery, they returned to the intersection and confronted Schick, who was still stopped in the street despite the light having turned green.

Schick allegedly refused to turn over his documents. "He started yelling, 'What are you going to do?' " the police source said. Witness Haskel Rosenfeld, 29, said he didn't see any mishandling of Schick.

"Four police put him in handcuffs, walked him down the block and put him in a car," Rosenfeld said. "The police had left, and during that time, people lit fires."

But some members of the mob were convinced that cops had roughed up Schick, whose brother Marvin, an aide in former Mayor John Lindsay's administration, is a prominent columnist in the Jewish press.

"I could see his hearing aid, and he wasn't hearing them," said Joey Weiss, 26. "He was asking them, 'What's going on? What did I do wrong?' "

Arthur Schick was charged with obstructing governmental administration. The other two men - whom sources identified as Chaim Gillig, 18, and Chaim Appel, 37 - faced charges of interfering with the arrest.

"They treated us like we were dangerous," said Yidi Klein, 31. "It was like the middle of the war, but they made the mess."

With Celeste Katz and Michael Daly