Is the Bike Advisory Committee starting to come around?
Last night at the Tucson Bike Advisory Committee meeting a fellow showed up to say that he had been assaulted by motorists three times in the past six months, and that although he had gotten the assailant’s license plate in one case, the police had done nothing to track down the driver.
I’ve been going to these meetings for many months now, pleading with the Bike Adivsory Committee (or “B.A.C.”) to get the Tucson Police Department to take assaults like this seriously, but my comments have been dismissed every time. I have been told I have a “skewed” view of the problem, that my evidence is “anecdotal,” and time and time again I face a police spokesman who smiles and nods and hems and haws and proclaims that everything is working perfectly and that my allegations are untrue. But never has anyone from the BAC or the police department asked for background materials about the many assaults I have files on. They just dismiss them out of hand and ignore the problem. It has been very disappointing.
But yesterday I saw the beginnings of change. After this man told his story, the police representatives gave their usual glad-handling response, but some members of the B.A.C. weren’t hearing it this time.
One member, Dave Boston, pointedly insisted that the Tucson Police Department find a way to keep track of assaults on bicyclists (which they have repeatedly said they cannot do, owing to a filing detail). Another member repeatedly asked why the police don’t pay a visit to the registered owners of vehicles involved with these assaults.
It would be easy for the police to preserve records of assaults on bicyclists in a manner that makes them searchable — they just don’t want to do it (they delete digital files of these crimes, so they cannot be searched by keyword.) And even if bicyclists do not get a look at the person who assaults them, the police can still visit the registered owner of the vehicle and ask him where he was driving at 3 PM down Grant Avenue, or whatever. They have a lot of ability to lean on people and, if nothing else, let folks know there can be criminal consequences to throwing things at bicyclists.
After the B.A.C. got done questioning the police, I told a story about one of my clients.
My client was a victim of a hit-and-run in which the driver stopped and called 911, thought better of it, and fled the scene, leaving my client bleeding on the pavement. We have the 911 recording, but the police refused to track down the caller and will not reveal the number the call was made from.
Worse still, we filed an internal affairs complaint over this lack of action on the part of the police, and we received a one-page response, stating that “no law or policy” had been violated, and then assuring us that the Tucson Police Department is “committed to providing excellent service to the community.” I bet you can imagine how my client, who had no health insurance and now faces large medical bills, felt when she received that letter!
I think it is long past time for the B.A.C. to stop making excuses for the Tucson Police Department’s dismissive attitude towards bicyclists. For too long they have swept this problem under the rug in an effort to achieve “Platinum” status from the League of American Bicyclists. But it isn’t worth it. In fact, given the behavior of the police toward cyclists in this town, Tucson should be stripped of its current “Gold” status until things improve and the police start protecting bicyclists the same way they protect motorists.
The point of the B.A.C., after all, is to make Tucson a safer place to ride a bicycle, not to get an award. Right?
–Erik Ryberg
November 16th, 2007 at 10:10 am
That sounds like a (small) step forward! Denial is such an ugly thing, isn’t it? What if we were to arrange a mass showing at the next BAC meeting or City Council meeting of all the cyclists we know who have been hit/harrassed by motorists and been ignored by TPD? Can denial continue in the face of the numbers and stories we all have? Or am i being naive?
November 27th, 2007 at 10:22 am
Being naive. I cannot believe that the police are not doing anything for the hit and run victim. It is just sick. The law protects the driver not the cyclist.