toddistic

you always get charged with resisting arrest and assualt when police are in the wrong. it's made up charges so the cop has something to put in his report.

apricissimus 

Cars have license plates and you can be tracked down using them (no I am not advocating plates for bikes).

And yes police do body check cars during chases. They use they're own cars to force the fleeing car to lose control. Roadblocks are another option that work with cars but would be less useful when chasing a bike.

apricissimus 

No one is trying to brush these things under the rug. Quit beating up straw men. And quit demonizing a group of people that we depend on as a society based on the actions of a a very small minority.

btmartin

Ok....is everyone watching the same video clip that I am? I mean I don't see that there is much room for interpretation. Outrageous.

genec

The only room for interpretation is that the cop could have been on the radio just moments before receiving a description of the cyclist as being a suspect... which would be motivation for stopping the cyclist.

HOWEVER... the arresting statement was false, the charges against the cyclist are relatively minor, and not involving any truly serious crime such as violence to other persons or property, (other then a trumped up charge) and the cop has had his badge and gun held. All told, this does appear to be a cop being overly aggressive.

apricissimus 

I've been making hypothetical statements regarding when it would be okay to take out a cyclist like the cop did in the video, but I want to make sure that everyone knows that I am not defending this particular action. At first I didn't pass judgment on the cop since I felt I didn't know enough about the situation, but once I heard that the officer claimed that the cyclist tried to hit him, then I made up my mind. It's pretty clear that the cop went right after the cyclist, and that the cyclist was actually trying to avoid him.

The cop deserves whatever punishment he gets. Unfortunately, his father is a NYPD detective, and cops tend to take care of their own so... I'm guessing he's going to get by with a slap on the wrist and will be back in the beat in no time.

wheels53

He definitely gets an Espy award for body check of the year.

gttim

One of the last times I rode in CM in Atlanta, a roadie came by in the opposite direction. He was:

1) Blocking traffic behind him on a busy narrow road
2) Flipping CM riders off
3) Then suddenly turned left in an intersection in the middle of the mass when he did not have right of way without signaling, CM had the green light
4) And almost caused a serious accident.

Of course he went home and posted on the internet how brave he was by flipping off those rule and law breaking CMers who have no regard for laws or safety!

What did those dirty, hippie, communist, tree-hugging, anarchist CMers do? We yelled "Happy Friday!" Nobody even returned his bird. Of course here in Georgia they not only ban the teaching of evolution, they also ban the teaching of irony and hypocrisy.

That video of the cyclist getting knocked off the bike is incredible. The brutality and stupidity of the cop should be amazing, but sadly it is not. His partner who witnessed the incident but failed to report it, should be canned as well. He was impeding the investigation of a crime if he lied in his reports as well. Police have a duty to report crime, not cover it up, even if it is another officer. Until they all take that seriously, they will all be viewed as the worst of the bunch.

The kid hit is a 29 year-old Army Vet. Imagine if he had to go through life with a record for attempting an assaulting a police officer, which he was charged for and probably would have been convicted of if not for this video. That act and lie by the police would have made this Army Vet's life much harder and limited.

gttim

My grandmother could check better than that. He hits like a girl. He would be laughed out of the semi pro leagues.

wheels53

Dude lighten up. It's a joke.

Pretty.in.Pink

https://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/us/...ks.cyclist.cnn

Made CNN.

Personally, I hope it makes the Critical M*******s think twice before pedalling around in their faux contempt for society.

frymaster

you've never read the mollen commission report, have you? if you're looking for "demonization" of the new york city police force, that's the place to find it.

apricissimus 

Fair enough. I have no special knowledge of the NYPD, so I think I'll bow out of this conversation. Thanks for the reference.

rousseau

Ahem, I think the English language has been butchered enough on this thread! Anyone care to interpret?

No? I'll take a stab. Did you mean "if a cyclist/motorist was witnessed committing an illegal act..."?

Fredmertz51

Smells like piggy poo to me.

mconlonx

If this was just a random officer taking out a random CM-er, check the footage and note that he waits for someone either at the end or in some kind of lull where there's not too many other riders around. Glad that another rider thought to grab the guy's bike.

The cop will say he was just trying to get to the edge of the road and the rider aimed for him. See? You can see in the video where the guy swerved from his forward course to hit the cop, and continued to do so after the cop took evasive action, like making a run for the sidewalk. That shoulder-check? Self-defense. The jury will be completely sold if there's a donut shop just out of frame to the left...

mrrabbit 

Okay here's my take based upon the video...

1. Officers received a call to make a stop. Notice how BOTH officers have the heads nudged to their shoulder mikes for a few seconds BEFORE the start walking to their right.

2. BOTH officers identified the cyclist identified in the call - notice that BOTH officers look directly at him as the cyclist appears on screen.

Watch that segment of video repeatedly - becomes pretty clear.

3. BOTH officers start to intercept - not one - BOTH with one trailing the other.

So far so good pretty routine action UNTIL...

The officer in question decided to...

1. Do a frontal block to force the cyclist to brake and come to a complete stop...NOPE!
2. Grab the back of the seat and drag the cyclist to a stop...NOPE!


He instead forms and elbow block with full body behind it and shoves non-helmeted cyclist onto sidewalk in the midst of pedestrians nearly killing the cyclist and injuring bystanders.

Two judgements:

1. This officer has difficulty with exercising "common sense".
2. This officer has difficulty making split second decisions.

In Summary:

This officer is a liability to himself, citizens and the city and requires considerable time behind a desk with limited duties and pay - requires considerable retraining and should he be allowed to return to the job - do so under at least 1 year non-uniform assistive patrol work whereupon the uniformed partner makes all patrol decisions and actions.

And of course - that cyclist should sue the city.

The officer really screwed up the stop action...

=8-)

jgmacg

Can we stop the hypothesizing, please?

If they had received a "call" to make a stop on a fleeing suspect, that call would have been mentioned in the police report. It was not.

JSteiner

1. Let's say there was a radio call identifying this guy as a suspect in a crime. The description would have been "An adult male on a bicycle wearing a white t-shirt, dark shorts, and a shoulder bag." I won't comment further on that.

2. If we assume he was properly identified, tackling him is about as justifiable as ramming my car after it was identified, which is only justifiable when it is the only option to reducing the risk to other civilians and officers, as far as I know.

3. CM is by and large detrimental to the goal of improving cyclists rights on the streets. All it does is anger motorists who are being inconvenienced.

4. The video is pretty clear in that the officer lunges towards the cyclist rather than out of the way, which is what he would have done if his report were accurate. It also seems to me as if both of the officers are rather nonchalant after the cyclist takes his dive. Nobody really seems in a rush to handcuff him, as I suspect would be the case if he were considered to be a threat or a criminal needing apprehension.

So while I don't condone Critical Mass, this video makes me a bit angry at that particular officer(s). I'm going to hope the biker makes out best in the end.

jgmacg

Sweet Jeebus.

gttim

Dude, lighten up. So was mine. Except for the part about my grandmother being able to check better. That was a joke but is also true.

apricissimus 

Neither of these would have been good options if he were trying to make a legitimate stop. The first would risk personal injury to himself (would you want to step in front of a moving bike?), and the second seems pretty low percentage, also with a (lesser) risk of injury. It would take some skills to grab the seat of a moving bike and I think there would be a good chance that the cyclist could evade that maneuver.

randya

I thought you were done with this thread?

buddy

It appears he is an ex-cop!

https://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.p...w&pageId=70887

Camera captures cop body-slamming bicyclist
'The police officer looked to see who he was going to pick off'

Posted: July 29, 2008
11:35 am Eastern

© 2008 WorldNetDaily

A New [FONT='Times New Roman', Georgia, Serif][FONT='Times New Roman', Georgia, Serif]York[/FONT][/FONT] City cop has been stripped of his gun and badge after a video camera caught him on tape lowering his shoulder and slamming a bicyclist to the ground.
Officer Patrick Pogan, a 23-year-old policeman working his first month on the job in the city's Midtown South Precinct, was standing in the middle of the street near [FONT='Times New Roman', Georgia, Serif][FONT='Times New Roman', Georgia, Serif]Times [/FONT][FONT='Times New Roman', Georgia, Serif]Square[/FONT][/FONT], monitoring traffic as a parade of bicycle riders passed by as part last week's Critical Mass ride, a monthly protest of urban reliance on motorized vehicles.
As the video shows, Pogan began walking toward the curb, then took a hard step toward an oncoming cyclist identified as Hoboken, N.J., native, Christopher Long. Pogan then delivered a massive shoulder check into the bicyclist, sending Long sprawling to the ground.
The video of the assault has since been posted on YouTube.

apricissimus 

I meant I was done defending cops in general. I'm out of my depth when people have actual reports and stats and things in regard to the NYPD specifically.