Just in from our favorite little contributor - BBI's "special lady friend"
You may remember the posting of the video on ServiceCourse: http://servicecourse.blogspot.com/2008/08/good-o-boys-nypd.html back on Aug. 15-
Watch this first - then read on as you'll see, um, I guess it was an accident. Again? And in looking at the video, it must have been - those poor fat cops, trapped in the road between the strip club and the doughnut shop.... It looks like they were just scared and made a break for it to get from harms way..... Copsuckers!
Prosecutors dropped charges on Friday morning, as expected, against the bicyclist who was shoved off his bike in July by a police officer in Times Square. The confrontation between the cyclist, Christopher Long, and a New York City police officer, Patrick Pogan, was captured on amateur video and circulated widely over the Internet.
Mr. Long, 29, had been charged with assault, resisting arrest and disorderly conduct on July 25 after Officer Pogan wrote in his report that Mr. Long had been weaving in and out of traffic and that he had tried to hit the officer with his bicycle.
But video recorded by an onlooker soon surfaced on YouTube, showing Officer Pogan lowering his shoulder and shoving Mr. Long off his bike on Seventh Avenue at 46th Street as Mr. Long tried to steer out of the way. (Officer Pogan was stripped of his badge and gun and placed on desk duty pending the completion of an investigation into his conduct.)
Mr. Long, who appeared in Manhattan Criminal Court on Friday morning, wearing a plaid blue shirt and gray slacks, seemed to shy away from the attention and gave only a brief statement outside the courthouse.
“I’m just relieved the prosecution’s over,” he said. “I’m going to go back to normalcy.”
He added: “This isn’t the first time that we’ve clearly demonstrated police misconduct and brutality, and people are prosecuted. I’m just relieved that the prosec
utors did take steps to stop the prosecution.”
Mr. Long has seemed to attract a bit of a cult following. Several people who have ridden in the Critical Mass bike rides — which Mr. Long was participating in when he was pushed, and which for years have had a troubled relationship with the police — showed up in court and applauded when the judge ordered the case dismissed. A court officer quickly quieted them down. One of the supporters had a camcorder and was taping Mr. Long as he walked through the lobby of the courthouse, but again, court officers quickly intervened and demanded that the footage be erased.
Laurie Mittelmann, 19, participates regularly in Critical Mass and was at the courthouse today to support Mr. Long. As Mr. Long walked from a horde of reporters, she told him goodbye and added, “Cool hanging with you.”
She said Mr. Long has attracted a groundswell of support “because we are a community and our community is made up of activists and people who care.”
She added, “We get excited.”
Mr. Long, 29, had been charged with assault, resisting arrest and disorderly conduct on July 25 after Officer Pogan wrote in his report that Mr. Long had been weaving in and out of traffic and that he had tried to hit the officer with his bicycle.But video recorded by an onlooker soon surfaced on YouTube, showing Officer Pogan lowering his shoulder and shoving Mr. Long off his bike on Seventh Avenue at 46th Street as Mr. Long tried to steer out of the way. (Officer Pogan was stripped of his badge and gun and placed on desk duty pending the completion of an investigation into his conduct.)
Mr. Long, who appeared in Manhattan Criminal Court on Friday morning, wearing a plaid blue shirt and gray slacks, seemed to shy away from the attention and gave only a brief statement outside the courthouse.
“I’m just relieved the prosecution’s over,” he said. “I’m going to go back to normalcy.”
He added: “This isn’t the first time that we’ve clearly demonstrated police misconduct and brutality, and people are prosecuted. I’m just relieved that the prosec
utors did take steps to stop the prosecution.”Mr. Long has seemed to attract a bit of a cult following. Several people who have ridden in the Critical Mass bike rides — which Mr. Long was participating in when he was pushed, and which for years have had a troubled relationship with the police — showed up in court and applauded when the judge ordered the case dismissed. A court officer quickly quieted them down. One of the supporters had a camcorder and was taping Mr. Long as he walked through the lobby of the courthouse, but again, court officers quickly intervened and demanded that the footage be erased.
Laurie Mittelmann, 19, participates regularly in Critical Mass and was at the courthouse today to support Mr. Long. As Mr. Long walked from a horde of reporters, she told him goodbye and added, “Cool hanging with you.”
She said Mr. Long has attracted a groundswell of support “because we are a community and our community is made up of activists and people who care.”
She added, “We get excited.”
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