Cop Nearly Doors Cyclist, Then Chases And Arrests Her

[Liberal_in_LA]

Cop Nearly Doors Cyclist, Then Chases And Arrests Her

Thede, a 28-year-old theater technician on the Upper West Side, tells us she was biking home on Sunday around 6 p.m. when the driver's side door of a double parked black car popped open suddenly on Amsterdam between 76th and 77th Streets. "I had to brake so abruptly that a delivery biker behind me ran into me," says Thede. "I had a verbal exchange with the driver in which I told him to watch what he was doing." Then she rode on, but soon realized that the guy had gotten back into his car and was zooming up behind her. She still had no idea this man was an officer of the law, and the situation devolved from there:

He was driving after me and I was scared. He kept slowing down alongside me, so I cut all the way over to the left lane. But he angrily skidded to a stop in front of me, pulling his car perpendicular to traffic in the left lane. Then I got off my bike and tried to walk my bike onto the sidewalk because I wasn't going to run out into traffic. That's when he grabbed the back of my bike and started pulling it.

He didn't say he was a cop and I thought, 'This guy's crazy, he's attacking me!' I screamed for help and he started restraining my arms and holding me so I couldn't move. People on the street stopped and started asking him what he was doing. I did not hear him say he was a police officer or see any indication he was a police officer, so I was terrified. Then an NYPD squad car arrived and my initial thought was that they were going to save me from this guy; I figured the bystanders had called 911.

But instead of handcuffing her assailant, they slapped the cuffs on Thede, and that's when she realized that it was a policeman who had chased her. "I asked one of the police officers who was telling me to calm down if this guy and the passenger in his car were really cops," Thede recalls. "And she confirmed that they were from the Central Park precinct. I overheard a bystander say, 'I think she ran a red light.' But that's not true. He was hotheaded and couldn't take someone telling him what he did was wrong so he needed to come after me and teach me a lesson."

Thede was charged with reckless operation of a bicycle and disorderly conduct, and spent about an hour at the local precinct station house. During that time, the cop who arrested her, one "Sgt. Santiago" according to the summons, tried to justify the arrest.

http://gothamist.com/2011/04/06/cop_nearly_doors_cyclist_then_chase.php

[northoftheborder]

1. what a frightening incident; cops like that really are "pigs"

[Archae]

2. So far though, all we have is the bicyclist's side.

She may have been reckless, we don't know, yet.

[Hassin Bin Sober]

5. Or the cop could be a full on oinker pig.

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

9. Or this could just be another "Critical Smash" asshole

who claims doe eyed innocence after any altercation with a motorist.

[Hassin Bin Sober]

12. Yeah, I'm conflicted. Douche-bag cop or asshole biker. Maybe both?

[Dorian Gray]

37. I'm on the fence, too

Living by Prospect Park, there are a lot of asshole bikers. But there are also a lot of asshole cops. Maybe a convergence of events brought out a confluence of assholery....

[2banon]

21. unmarked cop car double parked, opens door w/o looking

I have my share of gripes w/arrogant cyclists who think triffic signals and such do not apply to them. and I've seen far too many arrogant cops run roughshod wrt in array of incidents.

[bigmonkey]

6. You forgot the sarcasm tag!

:-)

[Recursion]

8. Right... because bicyclists are *so* safe and responsible...

...and *always* follow traffic laws :sarcasm:

There, I put one in.

[Snoutport]

13. OMG...I am one block from a major bike street....

they do such unsafe things!!!

[Recursion]

15. While walking I've been slammed into by bicyclists multiple times

Because apparently stoplights aren't meant for them.

[tammywammy]

16. Or stop signs

http://gothamist.com/2011/04/08/cops_also_ticketing_cyclists_for_ig.php

[Recursion]

17. That cyclist irritates me

The whole point is you don't *know* it's an empty intersection until you stop and look. That's why the sign tells you to do it.

[tammywammy]

19. I read a bunch of the comments

People defending it. Even if I'm at a slow roll in my car you gotta stop at stop signs.

I'm not anti-cyclists, but they need to follow the road rules.

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

18. The budget shortfall in Costa Mesa could be wiped out by sufficiently ticketing bike assholes

Hell, the California budget deficit and accumulated debt could be wiped out by ticketing all the bike assholes on the PCH.

[WinkyDink]

43. Really? You should have had some serious injuries, then. What were they?

[Recursion]

46. 2 broken ribs and a chipped tooth in one case

Sprained wrist in another. Thanks for asking.

[Incitatus]

24. Unfortunately, there is no video.

In cases like this many will automatically side with the cops and many will automatically side with the alleged victim. Perhaps there are other eyewitness that we will hear from in the coming days.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

40. lol

[WinkyDink]

41. Please. Get real. She had the delivery guy behind her as a witness.

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

3. The scales of Justice are malleable.

[lpbk2713]

4. She's screwed if he had a partner in the car.

The partner will say he did everything by the book and that she
was completely in the wrong and lying about everything. Totally
wrong but that's how it usually plays out.

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

7. Don't play in traffic

A hammerhead gets their comeuppance. You would be hard pressed to find a cyclist in New York who shouldn't be charged with "reckless operation of a bicycle" daily.

[JoeyT]

26. You'd be hard pressed to find a cop that isn't a petty little authoritarian anywhere. n/t

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

27. That may well be true,

but the urban cyclist is still a menace,

[a la izquierda]

29. Thanks, I'll keep this in mind next time...

I nearly get run off the road for being a menace. Happens at least once a week in Oklahoma. I think we lost 8 or 9 cyclists (dead) last year because of wonderful, law-abiding drivers. A 14 year old cyclist was nearly killed because some law-abiding driver ran a stop sign.

So, the urban menace goes both ways.

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

32. playing in traffic is dangerous

did your parents offer no guidance in these matters?

[a la izquierda]

33. eh, not worth arguing over.

[MilesColtrane]

10. Central Park cops have it out for bicyclists.

Central Park cops give out $140 speeding tickets to bicyclists who aren't speeding.

[Name removed]

11. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[merbex]

14. This story brought to mind an incident my cousin had aqbout 30 years ago

He couldn't have been more than 20 yrs old and he had bought what at the time was a very expensive bike. He was cruising down a road with traffic and he notices a police car passing him with it's lights on, it travels somewhat further down the road around a curve and when my cousin comes around the curve the cruiser has stopped and the police officer is standing out of the cruiser with the radar gun pointed at my cousin and he motions my cousin to pull over and stop.

My cousin does what he's told and the cop says:" I had to pull you over, you passed me in traffic and I was doing 35 in a 30 mile hr zone....that speed cannot be safe for you on a bike"

(We lived in town of about 15,000 people at the time)

My cousin was dumbfounded and asked if he was going to get a ticket.

"No, but I clocked you at 42 mph, consider this a warning"

We all had a good laugh and until this post I hadn't really ever seen any story that rivaled my cousin's.

[Vattel]

20. Normally my prejudices would make me assume

that the cop was being an asshole. But I hate bicyclists as much as cops. So I'm gonna sit this one out.

[blueamy66]

28. I'm with ya

But I hate cops more.

Why don't cyclists obey the road signs? They want the respect that cars get, but don't obey the signs that cars do.

And bike shorts on guys....YUCK! :-)

[La Lioness Priyanka]

42. except one has supremely more power than the other. nt

[geardaddy]

45. Except you didn't sit this one out.

lol

[Boojatta]

22. Some legal and practical problems related to evidence

Anthony Graber, a Maryland Air National Guard staff sergeant, faces up to 16 years in prison. His crime? He videotaped his March encounter with a state trooper who pulled him over for speeding on a motorcycle. Then Graber put the video — which could put the officer in a bad light — up on YouTube.

(...)

In the case of Graber — a young husband and father who had never been arrested — the police searched his residence and seized computers. Graber spent 26 hours in jail even before facing the wiretapping charges that could conceivably put him away for 16 years.

(...)Prosecutors across the U.S. claim that videotaping violates wiretap laws — a stretch, to put it mildly.

(...)

More recently, a New York Police Department officer was thrown off the force — and convicted of filing a false report — because of a video of his actions at a bicycle rally in Times Square. The officer can plainly be seen going up to a man on a bike and shoving him to the ground. The officer claimed the cyclist was trying to collide with him, and in the past, it might have been hard to disprove the police account. But this time there was an amateur video of the encounter — which quickly became an Internet sensation, viewed more than 3 million times on YouTube alone.

(...)

Even if these cases do not hold up in court, the police can do a lot of damage just by threatening to arrest and prosecute people. "We see a fair amount of intimidation — police saying, 'You can't do that. It's illegal,'" says Christopher Calabrese, a lawyer with the ACLU's Washington office. It discourages people from filming, he says, even when they have the right to film.

From article:
Dated Wednesday, August 04, 2010
by Adam Cohen
Should Videotaping the Police Really Be a Crime?

[Terra Alta]

23. There's got to be more to this story.

I want to hear the cop's version before I make any judgments.

[Name removed]

25. Deleted message

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Heywood J]

30. It's the NYPD.

What, he didn't have a broomstick or fifty bullets handy when they reached the station house?

The NYPD will only get respect again when it cleans up its act. Until then, I won't trust a word they say.

[Tesha]

31. Do Central Park Cop Cars have video recording devices?

If so, it's simple. Take the matter to court (disorderly
conduct charges certainly merit that) and subpoena the
cops' recording(s).

Subpoena the radio traffic as well and see if the officer
announced his intention to stop the cyclist.

There shouldn't be any doubt about what happened.

Tesha

[themadstork]

34. Christ, what's with all the cyclist hate?

Maybe some cyclists are annoying but there are PLENTY of automobile drivers that are just as obnoxious. The only difference is that the automobile drivers are blasting down the road in what is essentially a deadly weapon. I'll take the annoying cyclist any day.

As for this story. . . Sorry, but you open your door into traffic at your own risk. You don't need the cop's side to see that he wasn't paying attention to what he was doing.

[Recursion]

47. Automobile drivers pretty much universally don't whip through red lights when they think it's "safe"

Cyclists nearly universally do.

[themadstork]

35. Double post, snipped

[themadstork]

36. Wow, triple post. Not sure what went wrong.

[Dorian Gray]

38. You

had a point that you really, really, REALLY wanted to make! :)

[WinkyDink]

39. I was almost "doored" as a kid; it is VERY frightening to think you might fall into moving traffic!!

[La Lioness Priyanka]

44. i live in nyc and cops and drivers of cars/suv's are generally much more obnoxious than bikers

[Odin2005]

48. SOOOEEE!!! I smell pigs!