Police beat bicyclist, get caught on camera
Critical Mass is, essentially, bicycle activism. If you live in a city where the group operates (like I do), you've probably been caught behind this rag tag parade of cycling enthusiasts once or twice, and had to plod along at 5mph while you waited for the mass to get out of your way.
Sure, it's annoying. But it's also an eco-friendly cause, and reminds us all to slow down once in awhile. It's certainly not a reason to go beating people up.
Unless, apparently, you're a New York City policeman. Even though Critical Mass has been given the right to hold their monthly rides without a permit, the police force doesn't seem to care. They've been ticketing cyclists involved in the ride for whatever minor infractions they can come up with -- like lack of proper lighting, riding outside of the bike lane, etc. And this year one cop decided to get rough, and violently knocked a cyclist off his bike and onto the pavement.
After he was slammed into the sidewalk, the poor was held for 26 hours, and charged with attempted assault and resisting arrest. Fortunately the police officer responsible for the beating has been punished -- most recent reports say he's been stripped of his badge and gun, and assigned to a desk job pending further investigation.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
7-29-2008 @ 10:30AM
Baron said...
Where is the video of the biker and what he was doing coming down the lane? I find it odd that the camera panned, for no apparent reason (i.e. they weren't following any particular person), from being out front to holding on the officers. I can almost guarantee that a cop isn't going to do what he did w/o cause in front of all those people. Now, I'm not saying what he did was right, for almost any reason, I'm just saying that he didn't randomly pick that person out of thin air and I find it very hard to understand why the film followed the way it did. On a side note, I wonder how many of these bikers feel about the real critical mass, I can only guess...
Also, I would like to point out that I'm speaking as someone who bikes as much as I can, even though I live in a place that makes it very hard to bike.
Reply
7-30-2008 @ 4:39AM
Ian said...
Umm,
Police officers are people too, which means some are good at their jobs and some aren't. This one apparently isn't. That's why he's flying a desk for now.
You can't "guarantee" anything in a case without being there (in either case), and unless you know the officer personally, it would be unwise to vouch for him simply because he has a badge.
7-30-2008 @ 8:54AM
Baron said...
Right, I can't guarantee anything 100%, except maybe that you didn't read that whole sentence and missed the word almost... Almost guarantee is considerably different than guarantee. Again, I can almost guarantee that the biker was doing something to provoke the guy. These people are keenly aware of all the trouble they can get in with people around to watch them. As I said before though, it was not the right course of action from the officer. I just highly doubt something wasn't going on to spur it to happen and since I wasn't there and there isn't video of the biker before he gets there (that I have seen), I could never know/say for sure.