He’ll probably be welcomed at T.P.D. . . .
My friend Patty sent me the NY Times article on the police officer who body-slammed the cyclist and then arrested him for assault, disorderly conduct, and resisting arrest. From the article:
According to members of the group, Time’s Up, the video was taken by a tourist standing on the sidewalk. It shows bicycles streaming down Seventh Avenue at 46th Street, past two uniformed officers standing in the middle of the avenue. After a few seconds, one of the two walks quickly toward the east side of the avenue and into the original path of Mr. Long’s bicycle. Mr. Long appears to try to steer clear of the officer, but the officer then shoves him. Mr. Long crashes onto the curb, and people gather around him and the officer.
Officer Pogan arrested Mr. Long on charges of attempted assault, disorderly conduct and resisting arrest, the court papers say. Mr. Long, who other cyclists said works in the Greenmarket in Union Square, was released without bail on Saturday.
In papers filed in Manhattan Criminal Court, Officer Pogan said Mr. Long was weaving in traffic, “forcing multiple vehicles to stop abruptly or change their direction” to avoid a collision. Officer Pogan also said he suffered cuts on his forearms as he fell to the ground.
One cyclist, Craig Radhuber, 54, said he was a few feet behind Mr. Long, whom he said he did not know. He said Officer Pogan “body-slammed this kid off the bicycle so hard that he went from the lane to the curb.”
“I went over to yell at the police when another officer came and asked me to move back,” Mr. Radhuber said.
Mr. Radhuber said Mr. Long had not been weaving in traffic, as Officer Pogan alleged. “There was no traffic behind us — there was no traffic to weave in and out of,” Mr. Radhuber said. “The police officer looked to see who he was going to pick off.”
Bill DiPaola, a director of Time’s Up, said he arrived just after Mr. Long went down. “He got up and was dazed,” he said, referring to Mr. Long. Then, referring to Officer Pogan and the other officer in the video, he said, “They put their knees on top of his head and were smashing him into a phone booth.”
The best coverage is probably here at Gothamist.
And the police report is here.
The police union has defended the officer, saying he was only trying to protect himself. That seems to be the usual argument made by assailants against cyclists.
–Erik Ryberg
July 30th, 2008 at 9:25 pm
What do you mean, “He’ll probably be welcomed at TPD?”
July 30th, 2008 at 10:30 pm
Erik, your headline for this clip is troubling. Sure TPD has had it’s problems associating with bicyclists in the past. But to continue to badger them on unrelated circumstances is uncalled for.
July 31st, 2008 at 8:35 am
If you had seen TPD officers race and weave their motorcycles through the Tuesday Night Bike Ride a year ago when they first tried to intimidate us into not holding it, you might not agree. Seemed like some of those officers were having an awful lot of fun putting us at risk.
EBR
July 31st, 2008 at 9:18 am
Erik – I had the same thought as anonymous. You do appear to be painting with a broad brush. It’s no more fair than implying that all cyclists run red lights, and it’s inflammatory
Steve
July 31st, 2008 at 10:02 am
Maybe I say it because TPD has welcomed in their ranks officers who look the other way when cyclists are injured and assaulted.
Of course not every TPD officer would take joy in knocking down a cyclist, but TPD as an institution too often does not make any efforts whatsoever to apprehend those people who do. I’ve blogged about these incidents many times, and won’t recount them here. But as someone who sees a lot of these things come in, it gets wearying.
For example, I’ve got a guy now with an outrageous story of being ticketed after he got hit by a bus in a manner that was demonstrably the fault of the bus driver. His description of the encounter with the police is chilling–the cops were arguing with each other over what tickets to give him, because the tickets contradicted each other (one guy wanted to cite him for riding on the sidewalk, and the argument was about how if he was on the sidewalk he never could have run into the bus. Eventually they scratched out that violation on the ticket. And of course, he never was on the sidewalk in the first place.)
Think for a moment how miraculous it is that somebody had a camera pointed at that policeman in the video. Now think about how many times a similar thing must happen when there is no camera. What made this officer so confident that he could just knock over a cyclist? Experience did, that’s what. He knew that, absent some kind of miracle, he would get away with it.
Who would have believed this cyclist’s story if there had been no video? The cyclist would have been convicted of assaulting an officer, resisting arrest, and possibly sued for damages by the cop.
The deck is stacked and our job is to fix it. Right now TPD is very, very broken, with the baseball bat incident as Exhibit A.
EBR
July 31st, 2008 at 10:42 am
Strangely enough, this is the second video I’ve seen depicting NYPD doing this. I initially thought this was a repost of the same video. So I guess the lesson is to always carry a camera?
July 31st, 2008 at 2:05 pm
TPD certainly has some flaws as does NYPD, but I wouldn’t exactly call three weeks on the force a depth of experience. What will be most telling is how NYPD deals with Pogan and the investigation.
July 31st, 2008 at 2:25 pm
yeah, the video was featured on MSNBC Countdown with Keith Olbermann, Worst Person segment the next evening, great ’smack down’. Justice will be televized/youtube’d
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July 31st, 2008 at 5:36 pm
Those of us who have been on the inside of government and law enforcement know that what the NYPD officer did exemplifies an inherent degradation of State and Federal public servants’ mindset that appears to only grow worse. As previously mentioned, the lowered entrance and retention standards exacerbate the problem.
July 31st, 2008 at 7:43 pm
I can’t say the TPD is perfect, but they could be worse. Correct me if I’m wrong, but it seems to me that they are your greatest enemy. If that’s the case, I really think there are bigger fish to fry out there. One of which, and I’m sure this will start a huge flame war, but I have to say it, is some cyclists. Don’t get me wrong – I care more about bikes than just about everything, but there are some “cyclists” out there who do some RIDICULOUS shit. When a cyclist intentionally breaks the law, some drivers who witness will remember that the next time they see a cyclist. Is that necessarily fair? Of course not, but it’s human nature. I currently consider my biggest hazard in Tucson, as a cyclist, to be other cyclists who ride like idiots. And here’s the part that will really upset some people – Critical Mass does almost nothing but cause this kind of rage in drivers and I think the Tuesday Night Ride does too. Whatever the intentions may be, a hundred or two hundred slow people on bikes massed together on the street is going to get in the way of other people. Legal or not, it just pisses people off. It has the same effect of Critical Mass and anyone who says Tucson needs a Critical Mass ride has probably never actually ridden a bike in Tucson. Before the Tuesday night ride started getting big, I was hardly ever harassed. Now I get harassed all the fucking time by drivers who seem to have some rage against cyclists that was caused by a previous incident (like perhaps a painfully-slow moving blockade of people I would never consider actual cyclists).
I know sometimes it comes down to principle. “If we want to ride with 200 of our friends, we have the right to.” Yeah, I’ll give you that – you do. But you’re helping to make life for real cyclists difficult. If you want to ride your bike, then ride your fucking bike. Do it safe and smart, and have fun. If you need to be around hundreds of other people while you do it to have fun, then you don’t belong on a bike. Ever.
August 1st, 2008 at 9:56 am
Rhys, you had me there until you started talking about “real” cyclists. What is a “real” cyclist? Most of the people on the Tuesday Night Ride own no lycra and their bikes aren’t always very good, but they are the people I see riding around town all summer long, using their bikes to get from place to place. As long as we are rating people’s legitimacy as cyclists, I would put them right up there at the top. And the TNBR doesn’t really block that much traffic. It used to, but doesn’t now.
As for TPD, I want them to be better. A critical part of getting people on their bikes is making them feel like they are, first, protected, and, second, not actively harassed by the police. We don’t have that here yet.
–EBR
August 1st, 2008 at 11:25 am
Being a ‘real’ cyclist has nothing to do with clothes you wear or what kind of bike you ride, it is about respect for all the other people using the road, cyclists, pedestrians & motor vehicles. People that ride their bikes down the sidewalk, against the flow of traffic or blow through intersections are not cyclists, they are simply making the roads more dangerous for everyone and promoting a negative image to the non-cyclist public.
From reading your blog I know that TPD has failed to follow up on some very serious issues, I wouldn’t call that active harassement, do you have any examples of harassement other than ticketing people for traffic violations?
August 1st, 2008 at 11:36 am
To me, a real cyclist is someone who rides for transportation, because they want to, and follows the laws and advice from experienced riders. This doesn’t mean recreational and racing cyclists are excluded. Even those who ride just for the purpose of exercise or racing usually tend to ride pretty smart and follow the laws. The cyclist who I wouldn’t call a cyclist, but maybe rather “that girl on the bike” is someone who rides her brakeless fixie to the bar or the TNBR because it’s the cool thing to do. Or the person who rides for the purpose of transportation, but rides like a total asshole. But that’s just rhetoric – who really cares. I’m just annoyed that there are other people out there who look like me, but make me look like an asshole.
If John Law tells you to put a light on your bike for night riding, it’s not because he wants to help out the local bike shops – it’s because a light will help keep you alive. I see WAY too many people out there ignoring this and I just can’t bring myself to feel bad for the rider who blatantly ignores this rule and gets hit by a car or nails a pot-hole hidden in the dark and goes down. This one is a safety issue that usually affects just the person who gets hit without a light, but when drivers come within inches of hitting an unlit cyclist, their thought process goes something like this “Holy shit I almost just nailed that guy, that was a close one….. wait a minute, he doesn’t have a light, like he’s legally supposed to, and I almost just took a human life because of it – fucking asshole!” I’ve come close to hitting unlit cyclists on unlit streets before, and it’s pretty damn scary and infuriating at the same time.
Another thing I see a lot, which has no effect on me whatsoever, is the helmet issue. I don’t really care if other people don’t wear helmets – I can’t even claim to wear one all the time. Sometimes I’ll ride a half mile or mile to a grocery store and not wear one, but it’s there at least 95% of my time on a bike. I also understand that sometimes it just feels nice to not have a helmet on. Idunno, maybe I just happen to see a lot of helmet-less people while they’re on that half-mile ride to the store, like I do. This is probably a pretty lofty goal, if not ridiculous to some people, but maybe the TNBR can find a way to promote helmet-use. I’ve heard about you guys handing out lights before, which is cool, and hopefully that has helped teach people that lights are a good thing. Maybe if the TNBR was made a helmet-only ride, it would show some of those hipsters that it’s ok to wear a helmet and that they’re hair will be alright afterwards. I know the TNBR is slow enough that a helmet isn’t really necessary, but forcing the helmet, I think, would make some people change their mind about them. It’s good to hear that the ride isn’t blocking as much traffic.
As for the TPD – I’ve NEVER been harassed by them. A couple years ago I used to work late a lot, and there was a stoplight that would always get me, every night – pantano and broadway. Passing through broadway at that light at 11pm was impossible for me because the sensors didn’t know I was there, so the light could stay red for a really, really long time. After a couple weeks of that I started pulling up to the red light, checking for traffic coming down Broadway, and when it was totally safe I’d just cross. I counted at least four times that I did this in front of cops and they never said anything. They knew it was a shitty light and they understood that I could wait there forever. I’ve pulled that same move before early on Sunday mornings when there’s hardly anyone out, and the cops have never harassed me for it or anything else. They’re not out to get us.
August 1st, 2008 at 1:01 pm
I agree completely on the lights and the rest of it, too, and I have to admit you do see brakeless hipsters on the TNBR, but they are fewer and fewer, and most of the brakeless hipsters who do still show up are actually very thoughtful and skilled riders. I don’t agree with their safety-related decisions, but I respect their abilities and their contribution.
As for “active harassment,” you have to remember that just because it isn’t happening to you doesn’t mean it isn’t happening.
I believe that the stakeouts on University amount to a kind of harassment because they are ticketing large numbers of people for a violation in a place that I have yet to see cause an accident. Of course there are people who really fly through University and Fourth Ave and I think they deserve their tickets. But there are lots of people who do not, and they are getting tickets too just because they failed to come to a complete stop even though no other cars were in the intersection.
And the interest the police tend to take in ticketing cyclists who have been hit by cars looks to me to be harassment too. If you get hit by a car downtown you can expect to be ticketed for it, or even arrested, as one client of mine was. (For leaving the scene after his body left a dent in the car that deliberately struck him.) The message is that if you are on your bike you are on your own and riding at your own risk.
So although I do not think that any TPD officers are “out to get us,” I do think that TPD as an institution is operating on an old and out-dated bias that bicycles are toys and the people who ride them generally deserve what they get. Did somebody hit you with a baseball bat as they drove by? Well, it’s easy to fix that–grow up and get a car like a normal person. Did a driver run you down while you had the green? Well, as a bicyclist, you should have had the sense to get out of the way of a moving car. That kind of thing.
–EBR
August 4th, 2008 at 11:05 pm
REAL Cyclist??? Rhys you sound like a little nazi to me. If you’re going to criticize the TNBR maybe you should ride one first. As a matter of fact I invite you. I am anxious to hear about what a real cyclist is. Looking forward to meeting you. peace–Dean—P.S. might be a good idea to bring your patch kit.