9/9/2002: Bad policing

[Undertoad]

In Portland, Oregon, they have a "Critical Mass" bicycling ride every month. The Portland ride apparently attracts up to 800 bicyclists and part of the point, it would seem, would be to promote bike usage over car usage.

Typically the ride would be policed by about 5 cops who would just make sure there was half-decent order, but at some point the city decided to take a harder line. It might have been the fact that many of the CM folks were also at the anti-Bush rally which preceded the last ride, and both sides were able to culture their animosity towards each other.

In any case, the cops decided to really crack down, with pepper spray, rubber bullets, etc. and wound up arresting 9 people and issuing 47 citations.

Apparently the problem was that the bikers were doing things like going through red lights. Once in a while a ride would include a few abusive people. Well hell, let's go crack some heads.

A full pictorial is available here.

Also a Portland Tribune story

[Griff]

Since we have some newbies, I'm gonna recommend The Immortal Class again. The writing is great, it touches on the CM movement, and if you don't ride it'll put you in the saddle hopefully long enough to gain some insight.

[mlandman]

But why the title: "Bad Policing"?

I read through the blindingly one-sided "Full pictorial" article, then the more middle-of-the-road Portland Tribune article. I don't see the police doing anything wrong.

Looks to me like a cool cause/movement, that involves tons of people and the police presence is required because of the amount of people and to help insure things don't get out of control between biker and motorist. I'm sure a minority (probably vast minority) of the bikers do things they shouldn't, and the police step in. Some resist tickets/arrest, they get forcibly arrested. Why is this "bad policing"?

-mike

[Undertoad]

There's a way to get that done that is effective, responsible, and respectful of both sides. In the middle of that Portland Tribune story is an explanation: there used to be a city commissioner who kinda negotiated with the cops about how the ride would work, but he left.

Philly just had a commish who understood how to police crowds: John Timoney. (No, Syc, not "T-Money.") There's a science to it, I should think. You'd want to target and isolate the *real* troublemakers, without making it an us-vs-them situation. The last thing you'd want to do is to randomly arrest people and use as much force as possible just to make a show of it.

Good policing means not getting angry; calmly assessing the situation and using the correct amount of force that's called for. These guys just made it worse. They've guaranteed a rematch, for one thing.

At the very least the bikers should have been made known what was going to happen and what conditions were going to be enforced. This could have been done in the name of public safety and in the understanding of the importance of organized civil disobedience. Instead they decided to create a most unsafe situation. Bad tactics, bad strategy, bad will towards all.

[mlandman]

The last thing you'd want to do is to randomly arrest people and use as much force as possible just to make a show of it.

Agreed. My question is: who is to say that this is what happened here?

There seems to be no evidence of the police doing anything other than arresting the people that got out of hand. All the photos you see of people on the ground could very well be people that disobeyed police requests to stop what they were doing, and plysically resisted arrest.

All I'm saying is that this might be great police work. It also could be police brutality. Great image, but the "bad policing" is a big assumption. (IMHO)

-m

[lsd4all]

Hi, I submitted this story for two reasons:

1) I think this photo speaks for itself.
2) I live in Portland, OR.

I like living here eventhough it rains 80% of the time. anyway, in the last few years the police have made some very bad decisions when it comes to controlling large crowds (protesters, rioters, mayday paraders, etc). I think the biggest black-eye for the cops started at the May Day parade in 2000.
<a href="http://fruitiondesign.com/eae/archive/mayday_1.php3">mayday 2000</a>

And more recently, president Bush was here to speak about his plan to cut more trees down to help "prevent" forest fires from causing so much damage, only to be greeted by a few thousand protesters. I work downtown right next to the hotel he was speaking at and I saw all the protester/police confrontations first hand.
<a href="http://www.koin.com/webnews/20022/20020829_bushvisit.shtml">bush's visit protests>bush protest</a>

A quick note about Critical Mass in portland. Within the last year, there have been many incidents between the riders and the police. The unfortunate thing is that it only takes a few bad apples to ruin the whole event.

I don't hate the police and I know there are many sides to every story but this abuse of power by the police has got to stop.

[mlandman]

* People organize to protest something legit (and cool in this case!).
* For every hundred peaceful protesters, there are a couple of bad apples.
* Bad apples end up creating a problem during the protest of some kind that is against the law.
* Police move to enforce the law against those bad apples creating problems.
* Bad apples refuse and resist arrest.
* Police can either give up or use force to arrest those bad apples.
* When the force is used (no Jedi jokes, please), it gets photographed. People complain.

I think in some occasions police use excessive force. However, in most cases in which they use force, it's because a protester is breaking a law and refuses to obey the officer who is trying to enforce the law. So, officer tries to arrest the person and a scuffle breaks out. All I'm saying is that with all the photos on those two stories Undertoad posted, including the one at the top of this thread, I don't see anything to indicate that the police used excessive force, or used force when none should have been used. Could be inappropriate police brutality, could be police doing a great job enforcing the law against the bad apples. With all the crap that the police take, I usually take exception to an assumption of "bad policing".

The bad apples theory applies to the police, too. However, I would take a guess that the majority of instances of 'use of force' are justified. Just as most protesters aren't bad apples, just some.

-m

[lsd4all]

It's always easy to say what <i><b>should</b></i> have been done after the fact. But the street where a majority of the arrests were made in the august CM was Burnside which is one of the main arteries for cars. If the cops would have let the bikers go on their way they could have saved everybody a major headache on a friday at 5pm. I would think when someone in a car has to wait in traffic so the cops can arrest a dozen people for running a stop light on their bicycles, it makes us stop and think about our priorities.

You're both wrong.

As far as cops arresting dudes on bikes that run red lights - uh, why would this make us re-evaluate our priorities? I <b>still</b> don't want assholes running red lights, on bikes or otherwise. What if you hit one of those idiots - that's an hour or two out of your day now (and possibly more later on, if the bicyclist maintains it was your fault).

Red lights are <b>good things</b>. They help regulate traffic. And laws that make it illegal to run through them in/on your vehicle are <b>good things</b> as well.

[juju]

Cops beat up on innocent people all the time during protests. I've never been to such a protest myself, but nearly all first hand accounts i've heard of have said as much. Some of the videos viewable on nyc.indymedia.org actually show such unprovoked attacks.

[Griff]

d,
This is a tough one. When I ride its usually alone or in a group of four or five. I generally follow traffic laws so I don't get splattered (with the exception of speed limits because I want that speeding ticket. )The thing is this is such an effective form of protest that its begging to be done. In most places, cyclists get left out of the transportation decision making process because the gas burners have the numbers, the power, and the cash. Its a failure of democracy and a particularly ironic one since originally streets were paved with bikes in mind. This is a self perpetuating problem since without bike routes etc.. its open season on bikes so folks that would ride are afraid to do so. They should be willing to accept the arrest, though, since clogging the courts is also an effective weapon.

[Tobiasly]

True dat regarding red lights. My suspicion is that these bikers have run red lights every year for quite some while. I may be pissed if I have to sit in traffic because cops are arresting bicyclists, but I'm also pissed when I have to deal with bicyclists who disregard traffic rules, whether knowingly or not.

Don't get me wrong, I have no problem sharing the road with bicyclists who themselves obey the rules. I used to bike quite a bit in downtown Louisville, but I never ran red lights or otherwise broke traffic laws.

Yes, if they've done this for years without incident, and this year cops decided they should crack down, it would have been a good thing for the cops to make that known ahead of time. But I'd hardly call that "bad policing".

[Tobiasly]

Originally posted by Griff
This is a tough one [...] The thing is this is such an effective form of protest that its begging to be done.

So you agree that these people are breaking the law. So if they get arrested, it's their fault. There's nothing "tough" about that.

Now I'm not saying that civil disobedience isn't a valid form of protest, or that police brutality is ever warranted. I haven't seen any evidence of brutality <I>in this case</I>, however.

In most places, cyclists get left out of the transportation decision making process because the gas burners have the numbers, the power, and the cash. Its a failure of democracy....

How is this a failure of democracy? Obviously, if some city doesn't have proper bike paths, it's because the majority of people in that city don't think bike paths are a priority. If the majority of people do want them, then why not bring a motion to city council instead of protesting? You said it yourself.. the gas burners have the numbers. Refusing to cater to a vocal minority does not constitute a failure of democracy.

[Undertoad]

It's not brutality. It is an inappropriate use of force.

They ARE breaking the law; so do most vehicles on the road, in some way or another.

Regardless of the law, what makes us all get along is the unwritten codes and unspoken respect that we pay to each other.

If police enforced the actual law to the letter, we would all be screaming about the painful levels of enforcement we have to endure. What we tend to do instead is to give the cops a level of leeway: they're not the judge and jury, but they have a choice of various things to hook you on. they can decide to charge you or they can decide to look the otherway. They can hit you hard with the law, or they can warn you, or they can ignore you completely.

In response, cops should be looking to earn everyone's respect by managing that responsibility very carefully. "Yes, I know I'm the judge and jury sometimes. I promise never to use those powers inappropriately."

And they can't be selective at all, which is obviously what they were, if the law was not enforced at all for years and then suddenly enforced with arrests.

[Griff]

The "tough" part to me isn't the question of enforcing the law. The tough part is as a cyclist deciding whether or not to participate in something like this. Of course, its purely theoretical on my part since I live in the boonies.

Democracies often fail to protect minority groups. Its a basic weakness in the form that re-enforces mass culture. Over time the cyclist has been excluded from the roads since cars, which have there own set of problems in urban areas such as parking and air quality, are so efficient at moving us around. A CM protest is a good way to move the issue to the front burner. Who knows, it might even lead to a discussion about alternatives to our dependence on foreign oil. None of which says they shouldn't do their time or pay the fine. The brutality question is something for the locals to judge.