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Police Brutality at Seattle Critical Mass Bike Ride
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by Area Man | July 4, 2006 at 11:07 am
1868 views | 0 Recommendations | 3 comments
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I'm passing this along from the burningman list.
It is an eyewitness account from a woman named Ilsa about an incident
of poilice brutality against a man named Zack at a Seattle Critical
Mass Bike Ride.
Date: Sun, 02 Jul 2006 22:23:56 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [burningman-bcwa] police brutality at critical mass (not -ive)
To: burningman-bcwa@yahoogroups.com, templewhoreburningman@yahoogroups.com,
chat-spacevirgins@googlegroups.com
Hey all,
At last Friday's ride I witnessed some of the worst
police brutality I've personally seen. Plain-clothed
King County cops in an unmarked vehicle attacked a
rider and his friend who tried to protect him. They
failed to identify themselves as cops, as my
eye-witness account below attests to. Now Zack is
accused of assaulting a police officer and may face
felony charges. His hearing is on Thursday.
I first met Zack and his brother Mike at the first
temple fundraiser. They were the cute boys working
security and giving you involuntary pat downs as you
left the party. Zack has been to burning man and was
at critical massive last weekend.
Now he needs help from the biker and burner
communities to pay for his legal fees. Please donate
what you can, if not for him personally, than for the
sake of justice (how's that for a corny plea?). The
following link has information on how you can make a
donation:
http://www.point83.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2226
This is my story:
As I pulled up on my bike I saw at least two
strong-looking men grabbing a guy on his bike and
throwing him to the ground. It appeared to be a few
angry motorists who were starting a brawl. They then
proceeded to punch the guy (Jace I later found out) on
the ground. While they were hitting him, Zack and a
couple of other guys tried to pull them off. Zack
exchanged punches with one of the attackers, trying to
defend his friend and himself, and several people
continued to try and pull everyone apart.
It was only at that point that I heard the burly man
still
hitting Jace say, "Police. You are under arrest. Stop
resisting." By that time, they had Zack on the ground
and were continuing to hit him, despite the fact that
he was not fighting back. After they announced that
they were police, everyone backed off a bit and I saw
no resistance from either of the bikers who were
arrested.
It was only after they put both bikers in the back of
the van that they turned on their sirens and lights.
Otherwise, there was no way to identify this as a
police vehicle.
Scary stuff!!
xo,
ilsa
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Most RecentMost Recommended Comments (3)
at 22:03 on August 2nd, 2007
This is just like when the police beat up a girl at Reagan National Airport in DC. They assaulted this girl and gave her a serious brain injury and made her entire body black and blue. Then they arrested HER and charged her with a made up crime. You can be beat up by police and then have them charge you with a slew of imaginary crimes to cover up the beating, even if you are a law abiding citizen. You don't think things like this happen in America until it happens to you.
at 00:48 on July 29th, 2008
I always find it interesting how people justify their actions. Some (but not all) cyclists have a perception that they own the roads that were paid and built for motorized vehicle owners. The operation of a bicycle has never contributed on red cent to the building, or maintaining of any public road, but somehow the perception is that cyclist deserve the right to operate on something they do not pay for. The answer to this issue is simple. Have the cyclist that don't want to yeld to motorized vehicles pay to build cyclist only roads.
I as a cyclist consider myself lucky that cars drive and in tern pay to build roads that I can enjoy. I would never presume that they should give me the right of way and here are my reasons why:
As a finishing note corking is rude, inconsiderate and on top of that illegal.
at 04:47 on August 5th, 2008
Joe Shmo you are so wrong, most of the road maintenance money in cities comes from the tax payer, so cyclists have just has much right to use the roads as cars. Furthermore if only cyclists used the roads they could be built more cheaply, be lower maintenance, would require less planning eg - no complicated traffic calming measures would be necessary, not traffic lights would be needed so no endless waiting at red lights or "don't walk" signs. The list goes on and on. Car free cities would be so more pleasant!