[SDCBC] Critical Mass Cyclist Assaulted by NYPD

[JonIsaacs at aol.com]

In a message dated 7/28/2008 10:46:55 P.M. Pacific Daylight Time,  
wondernerd at juno.com writes:

If I had  complained to the San Diego Police Department about the officer who 
assaulted  a Critical Mass'er, would anything have happened? Not at all and 
the officer  knew it. 
Frank:   I believe something would have happened and you should  have 
reported the officer.
 
Several years ago when I lived in Encinitas, I was riding home on a summer  
Friday night.  As usual, the northbound traffic was backed up from  Carmel 
Valley road all the way up the Torrey Pines  descent.  This required careful 
riding in the bike lane  as every so often a car would enter  into the bike lane,  
one had to keep the speed well down, I never would go over  20mph.
 
Anyway, at that bottom of the grade just as the road turns  north, there was 
a police car parked in the bike lane and a police  officer with a TV camera 
crew filming the scene.  Not only did this  complete blocked the bike lane and 
forced cyclists around the  crew into the traffic lane but they were not 
visible until one was upon  them.  I felt this was a serious safety issue so I 
stopped and went  back to discuss this with the officer.
 
I addressed the issue in a calm way but the officer responded with nothing  
but cuss words, swearing loudly.  
 
I got his name and badge number and called the SDPD and discussed the issue  
with his supervisor, a lieutenant.  He was very sympathetic and offered me  
the choice between making a formal and an informal complaint.  As he was  
sympathetic, I felt the informal was fine.  
 
The issue was addressed and in the end I received a phone call from the  
lieutenant and then a phone call of apology from the officer.
 
So, I think we all know there are officers who behave poorly, Tom McHale's  
$410,000 settlement attests to that as do these other incidents.  But the  key 
to rooting them out is citizen responsibility so I hope that the next time  
any of us witness something we are uncomfortable with, we make the effort to  
report it to the proper authorities.  
 
Jon



**************Get fantasy football with free live scoring. Sign up for 
FanHouse Fantasy Football today.      
(http://www.fanhouse.com/fantasyaffair?ncid=aolspr00050000000020)
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://www.bikesandiego.org/pipermail/sdcbc/attachments/20080729/413db7b6/attachment.html