
police incident @ july 4th midnight mass.
half-awake details @ two a.m.
Traffic was corked.
E-bot rode through.
A random car pulled in front of him and told him he shouldn't run red lights.
The individual pulled in front of E-bot, got of his car, flipping police lights on and approached E-bot forcefully telling him to get off his bike and to get down.
Confused, E-bot asks for his Badge.
The man, determined to show his authority, tackles E-bot, again demanding he stay down, then forcefully shows the swinging badge to E-bot.
Then the officer proceeded to tell all the bicyclists to stand elsewhere.
He refused to give his name to us. (but how many slc cops working the gang division have a shaved head and a giant bushy beard like that?)
More people arrived.
Pressure grew.
Time passed, words came and went.
A hand shake between E-bot and the officer.
Feel free to clarify any of this in the comments section.
Then it was just going over the details, and wondering should a non-fleeing person be tackled for an assumed traffic violation? Furthermore, how many people does it take to handle an assumed traffic violation?
Our encounters with the guardians of law will only multiply as the numbers of bicyclists grow at our various events. This is the second encounter I have seen in recent mind, another one at Critical Mass...oh and then that cop at U-bomb.. so make that three within only a month or so.
We really need to get some information about rights out. If anyone has any good websites relating to basic rights, esp. in relation to bicyclists, drop a line in the comments. Your Rights spoke cards maybe? I remember those being passed out a while ago, perhaps we can do a reprint.
(The rest of the pictures taken of the police incident were blurry and hard to depict.)
Coming up next, the happy side of our july 4th midnight mass. Watch for the pictures here->
http://www.flickr.com/groups/629275@N21/pool/ciao.
zed.
(Edit: psychenaut has a much more detailed description of the incident. please read it in the comments)