| « Let's All Get Real IDs | Main | Friday Apologia » |
Remind me not to visit New York City anytime soon.
As loyal readers might remember, the cops there, including Assistant Police Chief Bruce H. Smolka Jr., hate cyclists. Seems now they hate freelance reporters too, according to this story (reg. req.) by Kareem Fahim and Jim Dwyer.
In one of the first arrests of the evening, a young woman who was straddling her bike and walking it out of the south end of Union Square Park was seized and personally arrested by Assistant Police Chief Bruce H. Smolka Jr."You're riding your bicycle on the sidewalk," Chief Smolka said. "You're under arrest."
The woman protested that she had done nothing wrong. The chief insisted that she get off her bicycle immediately, and then he tried to pull her off. The woman argued, and then other police officers, some of them wearing plainclothes, joined the chief and forcibly removed the woman from the bike.
Ride participants tried to retrieve the woman's bike and scuffled with police officers, who then arrested a second woman.
The sight of a senior chief in the Police Department struggling in a crowded public place with the woman roused the gathering of people.
Cries of "Let her go, let her go," and "fascist state" filled the air, as Chief Smolka and other officers led the woman into a van. A line of 10 motorcycles then sealed the edge of the sidewalk at the intersection of 14th Street and Union Square East. The arrested woman began to give her name in response to a question from a reporter, but only uttered one word - "Lisa" - before she was pushed into the van and the reporter was forced away from her.
Chief Smolka is the police official in charge of southern Manhattan, and oversaw many of the mass arrests made in August before and during the Republican National Convention, including more than 100 arrests of bicyclists at a Critical Mass ride that swelled to include 5,000 riders.
Cops then proceeded to handcuff and detain New York Times's freelancer Colin Moynihan.
Cyclists still managed to ride, by starting at a number of parks, not just Union Square and using cell phones to dodge cops, including a handful of undercover cops on bikes. At least that's what Lincoln Anderson's article in The Villager reported.
Earlier, Colin Moynihan, a Times reporter, was arrested after he had been standing at E. Sixth St. and Avenue A interviewing someone while covering the story. According to John Penley, an East Village activist who witnessed the event, an officer shoved Moynihan as police were clearing the corner and Moynihan asked for the officers’ badge number three times, after which a group of officers threw him on top of a police car trunk and handcuffed him.Moynihan, who was released without any charges, declined comment.
Also in Friday Bicycle Blogging news, Adam Shostack tries to get in on the action with this post about a winning design for a bicycle that acts like a tricycle at low speeds, but like a bicycle at higher speeds.
It's a sweet little design by Scott S. Shim, a Perdue College assistant professor and students Ryan Lightbody and Matt Grossman, but Adam should know that the first rule of Friday Bicycle Blogging is that you do it on Friday.
Posted by Ryan Singel at May 6, 2005 11:18 AM
Trackback PingsTrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.secondaryscreening.net/cgi-bin/mt-tb.cgi/182
I am a Seattle, WA resident who is 100% bicycle. This means no auto ownership for over a decade and thousands of bicycling miles. In this area, we have hundreds of miles of bike lanes and trails. I have no problem with local police. My problem as cyclist or pedestrian is yuppie encounters. Nothing is worse than the combination of arrogent yuppie, cell phone, and SUV. Could you loan us Bruce H. Smolka Jr. with orders to break a few yuppie heads?
Posted by: TryThisComment at July 18, 2005 05:19 PM
"Nothing is worse than the combination of arrogent yuppie, cell phone, and SUV. Could you loan us Bruce H. Smolka Jr. with orders to break a few yuppie heads?"
Trouble is, Smolka would prefer to break your head, not theirs. See if you can get a copy of "Still We Ride" about the NYPD busting cyclists at Critical Mass. Very disturbing.
Posted by: CTP at December 7, 2005 03:06 PM