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1) It seems pretty unequivocally deliberate, and there doesn't seem to be justification for it = I think this cop is going to lose his badge.
2) The guy makes a run for it later. Remember the whole Jedi Mind Trick debacle. Same reaction = cop hit him - he wants to get away. I totally understand that.
3) People make out like NYPD has destroyed Manhattan CM, but clearly it is very much alive - it looked like a big group.
New York Detective William Sample didn't lose his badge for riding his motor scooter into a crowd of protesters during the RNC in 2004. One of the people who justifiably beat the shit out of him for it went to jail, though.
There's got to be some back story behind this. It's easy to get upset from our point of view, but maybe the guy did something. Just seems really fucking unreasonable to just pick out a random dude and brutally knock him over. Oh wait... nevermind. Forgot who we're talking about here...heh.
That cop has been reassigned to Desk Duty. Seems light or as what SMPD would call, "pending investigation".
Well now I've been told Patrick Pogan (the tackling cop) has been Stripped of his badge. But he's still on the payroll and greeting everybody behind the desk with a nice Fuck You smile.
The bicyclist Long has been charged with attempted assult, resisting arrest and disorderly conduct.
What they did to me and what they did to him aren't really comperable, he got ktfo. That was great, hopefully the cop will get raked across the coals. I fell bad that he probably had to go to jail for getting beaten though, that is a rough night. =(
"According to the King County Prosecutor's Office, the two cyclists who arrested for their participation in this weekend's Critical Mass melee are out on $1,000 bail. So far, no charges have been filed; their next court appearance is scheduled for July 30.
I didn’t see anyone “surrounding” the guy’s car,” Braun says.”I saw some cyclists nicely asking the guy to wait.” Then, Braun says, the driver “just floored it” into a crowd of cyclists.
As the driver pulled away, Braun—who was not part of the group talking to the driver—was caught under the vehicle, and the car rolled over his leg. “I literally got run over,” Braun says. “I was hanging on the front of [the] car. I’m glad he made a left and tried to take off down the road. If he’d turned right, I would have been crushed."
That's just fucking enraging. I was really hoping that the cop tackled the guy because earlier in the ride a different officer saw him do something like throw a bottle into the crowd or rip a mirror off a car or something. But it sounds like the cops excuse is, "he was trying to hit me on his bike", which the video proves is not the case. What a dick. If that video isn't enough proof to drop the charges against the guy who got decked and charge the officer with assault, I don't know what's wrong with our system.
UPDATE: The AP is reporting that the police officer in the video has been stripped of his badge and gun and the NYPD has "placed the unidentified officer on desk duty pending the outcome of a department investigation."
I am really starting to believe that all this road rage and brutality against cyclists, as unfortunate as it may be to happen, it has been really working out in our favor.
that video is REALLY disturbing. It does bring back memories of Franz getting taken down in weho but it's so much more violent and abrupt. I hope you're right Borfo. When something this negative happens I want to see a silver lining!
I swear I've seen the same calculated move on the part of an NYC cop in an earlier video of another such conflict. They must practice that shove on a regular basis. Which means that cyclists must come up w/ some sort of counter, like kicking sideways Road Rash style before the pig can get close.
@noble experiment
Nice link.
The cop who did it was a third generation cop. But he was only 22.
He had just graduated from the police academy 3 weeks ago.
What a stupid thing to do.
Even from the police point of view.
You don't put two newbie cops standing in the middle of a 6 lane road to stop several hundred demonstrators. What were they thinking?
Now to play devil's advocate....
Do you think it was right that Critical Mass was taking ALL 6 lanes of traffic? They could easily fit in 2 or 3.
kcbstv here in l.a. is paying attention to it. the story was just on right now 22:22 on kcal9. dude if i see that happen to someone ahead of me i would prolly get assaulting an officer, coz i'd ram my handlebars and front wheel up his crack. i would have recked into him after tackling my friend.
can we all send this particular asshole cop our sentiments n comments? how do we get his work address to send his department/precinct letter. L.A. SPEAKS OUT. YEAH!
A New York City police officer was stripped of his gun and badge on Monday after an amateur video surfaced on the Internet showing him pushing a bicyclist to the ground in Times Square during a group ride on Friday evening.
The cyclist, identified in court papers as Christopher Long, 29, was taking part in a monthly ride, called Critical Mass, that often draws hundreds of riders. In a criminal complaint against Mr. Long, the officer, identified in the court documents as Patrick Pogan of the Midtown South precinct, says that the cyclist rode straight into him. But the video, posted on YouTube and on the blog Gothamist.com, shows the officer lunging toward Mr. Long.
The police said the officer had been assigned to desk duty pending a Police Department investigation. The police did not give the officer’s name or age or say how long he had been with the department.
The monthly rides have been a source of tension for the police since shortly before the Republican National Convention in 2004, when a large number of officers arrested more than 250 riders on charges that included parading without a permit.
In 2006, a state judge turned down a request by the city to forbid an environmental group that promotes the monthly rides from taking part in them, from gathering at Union Square Park beforehand and from mentioning the rides on its Web site.
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.
Officer Pogan said Mr. Long had flailed his arms, kicked his legs and refused to put his hands behind his back. He also said Mr. Long had “twisted away” from him, “thereby making handcuffing difficult.”
He said Mr. Long told him: “You are pawns in the game. I’m going to have your job.”
The video clip ends soon after Mr. Long hit the ground. Witnesses challenged Officer Pogan’s account of the incident.
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.”
A lawyer for Mr. Long, Mark Taylor, said the cyclist had been “assaulted by the police.” He said Mr. Long, who was bruised but not hospitalized, was not available for interviews. “We believe the video speaks for itself,” he said, adding that he hoped the Manhattan district attorney’s office would drop the charges against Mr. Long.
Norman Siegel, a civil rights lawyer who represented Time’s Up in 2006, said he had been asked by its leaders to look at the video. He said it “shows unacceptable illegal behavior by this particular police officer.”
“Unfortunately, it’s another example of how the N.Y.P.D. has targeted without justification the Critical Mass bike riders,” he said.
"peon"... that's one of my favorites to pull out when referring to one of the mindless masses when they're trying to exert control. they don't know how to respond because they don't know the meaning... and it sounds so damned good because... well, you know.
In Spain and other Spanish-speaking countries, especially those in Latin America, where the hacienda system kept labourers from leaving estates, peón has also a range of meanings related to unskilled or semi-skilled work or manual labour, whether referring to a low-status wage earner in a variety of rural and urban industries (especially a day labourer or a servant); a peasant; a bullfighter's assistant, or, historically, someone subject to forms of unfree labour.
[edit]English usage
The English words peon and peonage were derived from the Spanish word, and have a variety of meanings related to the Spanish usages, as well as some other meanings. In the English-speaking world in general, the term peon is used colloquially to mean a person with little authority, often assigned unskilled or drudgerous tasks; an underling. In this sense, peon can be used in either a derogatory or self-effacing context.