The CYCLIST was charged with attempted assault??? What am I missing here.

Wow, what a piece of shit that cop is. Fucking ridiculous. I hope someone got his badge number and filed a grievance with the CCRB.

So we complain about inconsiderate cyclists and how the cops do nothing about them, but when one of them is clearly disobeying the law (no riding to the right, no lights) and a cop does something, it's bad?

Piece of shit nypdickhead.

Unless that rider did something a block or 2 before, and the police were standing in the street looking for him, that cop has a world of trouble coming.

Holy shit. In the slow-motion version you can see the cop take big leap forward in order to push the rider over.

If this hadn't been on video, the story would have been that the rider tried to hit the cop.

EXACTLY, robingee!!!!

btw, the cops were blocking traffic, not the cyclists!!

and note, the attackee is doing nothing but riding his bike and he actually is quite within the pathetic remnant of a bike lane/sharrow. i know cuz i bike there all the time.

unacceptable.

robot meat head failure power whore.

holy shit. maybe this is a campaign by the nypd to remind riders to wear helmets! you know, because you could have a crazy asshole pig run up and shove you off your bike at any time.

what we have here is a video for which we have virtually context, showing a uniformed police officer standing in the middle of the Times Square watched by approximately 100-300 camera-holding spectators launching a vicious takedown of a cyclist. Call me naive or optimistic, but i doubt that even the most brutal, corrupt cop on the NYPD would be stupid enough to do that.

The way these two cops were standing, they look like they are watching for somebody, and poised to take action on them when they see him. More than likely, the 'attempted assault' this guy was guilty of happened somewhere earlier off-camera, and these two cops had been ordered to take him down when they saw him.

I'm not saying the NYPD is a model of probity, but let's be realistic here. Critical mass bikers can be assholes, the rides attract riff-raff and contribute to a "disobedient" mindset that some people take too far. more than likely this guy had it coming to him.

Someone made a post on another forum and said

"Why did the officer do that?"

And my question is...why did the officer do this? Did the cyclist do something bad earlier? Context is important here and this video has none.

Still, I think the takedown was unnecessary at first view.

sorry, two corrections to my comment- no cop would be stupid enough to do that without a very good reason.

And i should have said the 'attempted assault' this guy was CHARGED WITH, not 'guilty of'

What the mother fuck?!!??!

As for the folks running Devil's Advocate... unless that biker had just shoved someone else to the ground or done something comperable there is no reasonable justification for the actions of that cop.

That was pathetically barbaric and shameful behavior on the part of the nypd.

kojak- i'm not saying he should be taken down like that just because a large percentage of CM riders may be assholes. what i'm saying is that he may be the type of asshole who had committed assault earlier in the ride and was considered dangerous enough to deserve to be taken down. Do we know if he had a knife? do we know if he was whipping a bike chain around or anything else? No, we don't know anything, because we have no context and haven't heard any part of the NYPD's side of the story. it would help if there were a link to some sort of news article explaining why this happened.

what it comes down to is, do you really believe this cop is career-suicide inclined enough to pick a biker at random, assault him in front of several hundred people (many of whom are clearly recording this event), cuff him, then speciously charge THE BIKER with assault and resisting arrest? That is insane.

I don't normally like cyclists, but that cop needs to have the book thrown at him.

That's some bullshit right there.

you people seem to be living in a fantasy world of "certain unalienable rights". fuck that eighteenth's century shit.
the job of the Fascist Security Forces, aka.. ny's finest, is to soften up the criminals (pushing the scum of the bike) (we're all criminals by the way) and then extracting the voluntary confession (26 hours in jail).

yep, not illegal to be an asshole. nor to photograph or video pigs being pigs, which, context or not, you can see they've got a big problem with.

again, kids, listen to public enemy when they say "fuck the police" and carry that lesson with you at all times--it won't be wrong but maybe one percent of the time.

a pig is a pig is a pig, and this video is yet another in a long line that demonstrates that perfectly.

I'm sure it's been said by many people over the years but all the people I knew in high school who went on to be cops were the worst of the worst bullies. Whether they are patrolmen or detectives or state troopers or whatever - as soon as they're given a badge they act as if they are allowed to just push people around "just because".

Screw them.

and the idea that "no cop would be stupid enough..." is weak as shit--never underestimate their stupidity--they are members of the pig herd *because* they are stupid, remember? it's that or working their way up to a job in the mail room in a basement somewhere (no offense to people who work in mail rooms), and that takes a lot more effort.

mrguy - you are speculating and really have no reason to believe the things you say are true other than "well, what we see doesn't make sense." If you have much knowledge of the history of the NYPD's interaction then you'd know that much of what they do doesn't make sense. PERHAPS something happened before what we see on film took place, but there is also a good chance that nothing happened. Cops in NYC have driven scooters into crowds of cyclists, wrapped cyclists in netting to 'capture' them, and thrown cyclists in jail for over a day for simply running a red light.

now you can complain all you want about lawless cyclists, but the fact of the matter is running a red light does not warrant being arrested, and it certainly doesn't warrant being body checked to the ground. everyone is saying "critical mass riders are assholes" and while i am a cyclist that does not enjoy taking part in CM for various reasons, look at that video. do you see anyone being an asshole? i see people very calmly and peacefully riding through the streets. LOTS of families participate (or used to before the irrational crack down) in NYC CM. Lots of middle aged people did as well. It isn't a vandalizing band of young hoodlums, and those who think it is generally have never witnessed the ride and just assume it is full of young anarcho-terrorists or some such garbage because "Why else would the cops hate them so much!?"

Complain all you want about the effect the bike rides have on traffic, but it lasts roughly an hour once a month, and how much worse is it than typical NYC traffic? How often can you not get through an intersection because it is clogged with cars? How often do cars violate traffic laws? You can try to pin all of this on cyclists, but the truth is that everyone in NYC - cars, pedestrians, and cyclists - violate the laws of the street each day. Should jaywalkers be slammed to the curb?

These cops in the video are not randomly knocking people down. It's pretty clear from the video (even taking into account the lack of context) that they were waiting for this guy, and saw him coming, recognized him, and then knocked him over. If he truly did just assault an officer in another altercation, it's doubtful that he would have stopped because they held their hands up and said "stop." If some guy just punched your mom and you saw him riding by you on his bike, would you say "hey, you there, stop please!"???

#32 mrguy:
I'm a huge nypd supporter, but this cop was out of line.

It will take an 80 second clip to dismiss the bicyclist of "attempted assault a. 80 seconds will also get this cop suspended, a nyc lawsuit and then a civil suit. this cop just cost the tax payers a few hundred thousand dollars, if not a couple million...

He's cooked.

lets me play devil's advocate here, as someone pointed out context is important.

Lets says that the person pushed down just struck some 8 year old kid with his bike, did not stop and fled the scene.

Cops at the scene radio a description of the perpetrator to other cops further ahead.

Cop tells the biker to stop. Biker refuses.

Biker is pushed down.

Unless you were there, this is certainly a possibility.

Don't rush to judgment. That's all I am saying.

If the cop did this without justification, then this is abhorrent behavior.

kojak,
yeah, it looks harsh. but police work isn't pretty. these cops stood there while dozens of bikers rode past them. then the cop on our left sees the biker in question while he's still off camera. he starts moving to corner him, tracking his path, again, even as the biker is off camera. by the time the biker is in the frame he is clearly trying to move around the cop while maintaining speed. you see a cop trying to intercept your path and you don't slow down or stop? even if you're not under arrest, a cop is within their rights to stop you and talk to you. the cyclist's behavior, even the tiny amount that we can see, is suspicious. and who knows what happened off camera earlier.

markedman, edEx-

I'm a cyclist myself, believe it or not. But i feel like events like CM give us a bad name. what exactly is the point of these rides anyway? They are disruptive, and i'd politely disagree that the people in this video are riding "calmly and peacefully". and who knows who did what while off camera. Isn't part of the CM ethos that anybody can join and there are no organizers? so basically it's just a mob?

However, that's beside the point. I agree 100% that a takedown like that for running a red light is out of line. And i agree 100% that the NYPD has been overly harsh on cyclists in CM in the past- the nets, the arrests, all of it. Total bullshit. But the cops targeted this guy, and IN THIS ONE INSTANCE, they probably had a reason that's good enough to justify (in front of a judge or civilian complaint review board, at least) their actions.