another uniformed thug, saving our streets for cars
Around 9:30 on Friday night, a bicyclist pedaling down Seventh Avenue veered to the left, trying to avoid hitting a police officer who was in the middle of the street.
But the officer, Patrick Pogan, took a few quick steps toward the biker, Christopher Long, braced himself and drove his upper body into Mr. Long.
Officer Pogan, an all-star football player in high school, hit Mr. Long as if he were a halfback running along the sidelines, and sent him flying.
As of Tuesday evening, a videotape of the encounter had been viewed about 400,000 times on YouTube. "I can't explain why it happened," Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly said on Tuesday. "I have no understanding as to why that would happen."
These are the first short paragraphs of a longer Jim Dwyer piece, "When Official Truth Collides With Cheap Digital Technology", published on line by the NYTimes a few hours ago. The site conveniently supplies a side box, a history capsule of some recent arrests in New York City. It focuses on the dramatic discrepancies between police accounts and what was captured by cameras, and there are also links to texts and videos.
New York's bicyclists have seen the future of the city, and they are already a part of it. Unfortunately the NYPD is operating somewhere in the early twentieth century: They may be our "[girls and] boys in blue", but when there's a bicycle in sight they act like Brownshirts.
See video evidence from this past Friday of the latest violent assault in the NYPD's continuing illegal campaign against bikes here, and for more history, see this video report.
[bystander's video stills from the New York Post]