Cop Who Shoved Bicyclist Indicted Using YouTube Footage
The police officer who seemingly randomly picked a bicyclist out of a critical mass crowd to tackle has been indicted for falsifying records and could also soon be charged with misdemeanor assault. The YouTube video [below], which went viral soon after the incident, was instrumental in the indictment.
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The officer claimed that the bicyclist had shoved him before the officer tackled him back, but the video shows no such incident.
Critical Mass is held on the last Friday of every month in over 300 cities across the world. Bicyclists join together for a cross-city ride moving as one unit and often disobeying traffic laws. The movement is intended to allow bicyclists, who typically must watch out for cars on the road, to be the traffic themselves.
[Via: Gawker]Photo Credit: Doug Letterman on Flickr under Creative Commons license.
Misdemeanor assault? Surely he should be charged with felony assault, due to his position. I mean, if it was the other way around, it would likely be attempted murder or something..
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOWNED
It should be felony assault and battery, but we always give the cops way too much leniency it seems.
Two cops failed here. The one who assaulted a citizen. And the one who saw but failed to take action against that activity?
The cop was obviously in the wrong here and deserves whatever punnishment he gets.
Critical mass is an interesting thing. I’ve seen them happen in numerous citites and, unfortunately, breaking trafic laws and behaving in a less than orderly fashion seems to be the norm.
Raising awareness is good. Making drivers think all cyclists behave this way is bad.
My guess is that this is the reason why the cop behaved this way (this surely doesn’t excuse his behavior, but it might well explain it).
The idiot cyclist got what he deserved. Too bad it wasn’t a fractured skull.
Why, why would the cop do that ?
that sent chills all over my body.
Once a pig, always a pig.
I remember that sickening clip! Youtube Justice Strikes Again.