Singlespeed & Fixed Gear - nyc crit mass drama

wtf happened at st marks place? a bunch of those stupid nyc scooters surrounding a blacked out suv; as soon as some kid in a white t-shirt hit their bunch he got dragged off his bike. next a bunch of bikes were over against the wall, feel like they went over in solidarity, and the ziptie cuffs were out.

?

police scooters? police SUV?






http://www.netflix.com/familyguy

yea sorry if not clear. nypd scooters escorting a blacked out suv, looked like hercules cops

sounds like every critical mass these days.

yep I was just riding by from St Marks place then out from behind the first group SUV and alot of scooters just started arresting people at 3rd ave. A second group turned up by cooper union and a SUV was in traffic which was a cop SUV went through the light to catch them..

S/F<
CEYA!

lots of arrests all over the place tonight.

Hi guys. I do not live in a big city, so I do not understand posts like this.

Were the riders targeted for arrest behaving like protesters at the G8 in Seattle, or are the police 'making examples' like the peace sit in's during the nam war?

Were the riders targeted for arrest behaving like protesters at the G8 in Seattle, or are the police 'making examples' like the peace sit in's during the nam war?

It is now standard nyc police policy to go after people on bicycles during crit mass. Under directive from the mayoral office. Regardless of conduct by any rider.

Facism is quite chic now a days.

That sucks. Bloomberg sounds like total scum. I never liked Newsom, myself, but he isn't having us arrested for riding bicycles. Sorta puts things in perspective. Some dude in Austin was talking about how the mass riders there get constantly ****ed with and how a month or so ago some dude just ran over a guy.

Wtf is going on there? Didn't you guys have permission to use the street there or what? Anyway, handcuffing can't be legal in the case of petty offenses like riding beside each other instead of in a row etc. And your F-ing president rides a bike!

Honestly, I have no idea why anyone ever thought the US was the land of freedom.

It is now standard nyc police policy to go after people on bicycles during crit mass. Under directive from the mayoral office. Regardless of conduct by any rider.

Facism is quite chic now a days.

so...just so i'm clear:
critical mass has a demo, police start arresting anyone on a bike regardless of association/proximity to the demo? or the start arresting people who appear to be associated with it?

critical mass is a demo of sorts, enough riders en masse to create the critcal mass needed to claim the streets as our own. folks were getting arested who appeared to be involved with it

It's been happening in Chicago lately too. Not on the scale of NYC but little random groups. I did CM last evening with a bunch of the local crew (and one from MPLS - HereNT!) and some of us bailed out after 45 minutes or so (CM is just too slow). Apparently towards the end of the ride, the police arrested a few random people.

CM is not worth getting arrested for, in my opinion. I love what they're trying to do and respect that but sometimes it gets out of hand.

sad though because last night there were no more than about 50 riders it felt like. last year there were ten times that number.

sad though because last night there were no more than about 50 riders it felt like. last year there were ten times that number.

Before the RNC, it was twenty times that, with no hassle.

I love what they're trying to do and respect that but sometimes it gets out of hand.


I still haven't figured out what they are trying to do. When I lived downtown, CM rolled by my apartment like clockwork, and I was usually reminded of it by all the honking that I heard. What I generall saw was a mass of bikes- many of the stragglers would continue to roll the red lights. Some people would stop in the intersection to yell at and provoke motorists. Others would drift across the center line into oncoming traffic. It really wasn't about rights or reclaiming the streets, since there was so much lawless "civil disobedience" involved.

It ends up being like farting in church to suggest CM is anything less than perfect- but is the issue advocating for bicyclists -or- is it an excuse to do whatever they want under the banner of protesting pollution, traffic, etc...?

Bill from Times Up claims 700 riders last night; I'd put the number at more like 450. The ride got split up early on, so the 50-person group you saw was probably just one fragment; from reports I've heard, there were as many as five separate groups riding last night.

If you personally witnessed arrests (EddieBrannan?), please write down what you remember to keep your memory clear and drop me a PM; I can put you in touch with the legal defense team. Witnesses are ALWAYS needed, especially now that the federal Department of Justice has opened an investigation into the NYPD's apparent policy of faking evidence / committing perjury in an effort to prove false charges (as has been proven in court repeatedly over the last year).

i was in the square from early on, so unless a far far earlier group had already left then it was nowhere near 700 people.

as far as what i saw, i was in the middle of the pack and we made a left off broadway onto astor. we rolled up onto the suv and the scooters (i didn't feel like they were there for CM riders, more like they were escorting somebody and the CM peloton rolled up on them - i could be wrong about that though). i didn't see the white t-shirt kid get pulled from his bike. my girl, who was riding right in front of me, did. what i saw was all of the scooters pulling over and lots of riders with bikes up against the wall on the southside of the street just east of Bowery. i saw cops moving towards them with ziptie cuffs.i didn't see anything else cause i was looking for my girl. she had pulled off the road on the north side of the street and was taking pictures, so i'll ask her to check her camera, but to be honest i don't know how much she got cause we got out of there pretty quick and headed down bowery. a cop suv came down fast behind us and almost sideswiped me cutting into traffic. we turned off onto essex i think and came back up allen and at that point i was like **** this. the cop suv was behind us all the way bipping his siren and i'd already bounced off his freakin hood.

pm me if you need any more info

wow, that sounds crazy....nothing near close to that happens here, hell I dont even think Ive ever seen a CM.

It's been happening in Chicago lately too. Not on the scale of NYC but little random groups. I did CM last evening with a bunch of the local crew (and one from MPLS - HereNT!) and some of us bailed out after 45 minutes or so (CM is just too slow). Apparently towards the end of the ride, the police arrested a few random people.

CM is not worth getting arrested for, in my opinion. I love what they're trying to do and respect that but sometimes it gets out of hand.


i was at the front when they started arresting.
there were nekkid drunk people, and we were riding on lakeshore drive. the nekkid people wouldnt have been a big deal if we had stayed away from lakeshore drive. that is a huge no-no in chicago. the police had to roadblock us, and everyone literally jumped the drive to the lakefront path!

generally, the police are cool though, and they ride with us sometimes and hold traffic up for us. daley is pretty cool about all that.

I have been thinking about riding in a critical mass in DC. Does anyone know what the DC ride is like? Do people get their bikes taken much by the po. I have one bike (fixed Nishiki) and i can't afford to have it taken.

last months dallas cm was pretty low....2. i never found the 'group', i would have made 3. There isnt much problem with the cops around here as far as cm goes

haha do they even know about CM in dallas.

haha do they even know about CM in dallas.

i guess not

critical masses sound like they cause more trouble than good

I would put the ride at about 300. Arrests at about 5 locations, with a total of 48. Any nyc people wanna chat about it or have info come see me at 49 houston on thurs. after 7pm. I'll grill ya something to eat.

-timmy

There's a post over in the Advocacy section where a rider who was at the front of the ride heard the ride leader's radio echoed by a 'bystander'. Right after that the arrests at St Mark's occurred.
It would seem that the police are listening in on the radios used, so they can set up a roadblock and start cuffing people. Since we all know that CM is 'spontaneous' and 'not organized', I don't know how radio security will be arranged. :-)
I'm not in favor of CM: I believe that there's too much inherent confrontation in the practice. And since the NYPD is a para-military organization, they just eat this up. If you're committed to this course of action, you need to use the power you have against the NYPD: the Courts. Bring video cameras. If you're using radios, make sure they're the walkie talkie feature from your cell phones: harder to pick out of the ether, and the cops need a warrant/court order to do it. Back to the phones: place people with cameras ahead of you. This way the entire thing can be documented from the arrival of the police to the confrontation and arrests. As soon as you can demonstrate an organized effort to arrest people, especially those who can be shown to be riding within the Law, the NYPD will back off. Not until then. They regard this whole CM thing to be a challenge to their authority, regardless of what the Mayor might or might not have ordered. Speaking of which, the previous Giuliani administration was something like 0-14 when it came to First Amendment suits. If Mayor Bloomberg really did order the NYPD to crack down on CM, where is the legal challenge? You gotta figure the odds are in your favor....

The legal challenge is ongoing. Lots and lots and lots of people are fighting their charges, and they're overwhelmingly winning... And with every win, we get closer to being able to force the NYPD to back down and obey the law. The City Council is also doing terrific work, with several proposals up right now to modify existing laws to offer more explicit protection against politically-motivated arrests...

The legal challenge is ongoing. Lots and lots and lots of people are fighting their charges, and they're overwhelmingly winning... And with every win, we get closer to being able to force the NYPD to back down and obey the law. The City Council is also doing terrific work, with several proposals up right now to modify existing laws to offer more explicit protection against politically-motivated arrests...

Very Cool.

As much as I decry some of the behavior at CM's, when the police (or any gov't agency for that matter) oversteps their authority, it really p1sses me off. Is there some registry of people who have been ticketed, and subsequently beaten the summons? I'm thinking Class Action here.

There's a civil-rights group in Brooklyn who make it a point to show up when there's a situation with video cameras. It seems there are 'rules of engagement' for filming police activities, ie, a certain distance away, etc. Look them up and pick their brains. Also, keep a note of shield numbers: if a certain shield number is continually found as the Complainent, an individual suit can be contemplated. Ironically/Idiotically, if 5 or 6 individuals can be isolated, it might make a formal settlement easier to reach, as the NYPD will have these guys as 'bad apples' to blame. Screwy world, huh?

anyone have a link to an articleon this?

we got to ride with about a doz bicycle cops on our CM in Toronto. They were jackasses at first, but eventually just gave in and basically escorted us through and blocked traffic at every intersection. Kind of surprising, really. It was my first CM, but from what I heard lately they usually act as nuacances and don't really offer much real "protection".

The biggest beef I had was the fact that a rider was apparently ticketed for "obstructing traffic" about 5 minutes before we all rolled past a large delivery truck blocking an entire lane in china town. Do you think HE got ticketed? Lots of verbal challenges from the CM riders, but they just ignored it and didn't do anything. Lame.