With news of the bike-ticketing blitz this week, some of us expected a major crackdown at last night's Critical Mass Ride. Luckily for the bikers, it sounds like cops decided to take it easy-- though there were some scattered reports of harrassment, we haven't heard reports of a lot of arrests. BikeBlog reports:
After over a year of police harassment and intimidation, with varied tactics, it has been very hard to predict what the NYPD is going to do about the Critical Mass. Will I get arrested tonight? This is the question in the backs of many of those in attendance. This can effect how willing you are to come to the ride. Well last night people seemed to be back in the action despite several helicopters flying overhead and the usual brigade of scooter cops. There were about 30 people at Washington Square Park, 50 at Tompkins Square, 12 at Madison Park and about 300 combined at both ends of Union Square Park. This was in accordance with the attempt to split up the ride a little and at least be able to get critical mass going. The idea stemmed out of the fact that people weren't even able to get 2 blocks out of Union Square park and thus form critical mass. It sounded like last night the police were around to monitor but the arrest order, for some reason wasn't given. Maybe no one wanted to do the paper work tonight on this long Halloween weekend.
Will from UntitledName also has some good pictures from the ride-- and you can find some more on Flickr. Did any of you go last night?
