Critical Mass January 2001

Portland Police declare War on Cyclists! Mass Arrests and Brutality!

Film at...

oh, cyclists. Who cares? They oughta be onna sidewalk anyway, always gettin in my way..

So there's this ride every month in Portland (and a hundred other cities in the world, see the webring), where cyclists meet and ride around in the city. Since there are so many of us, we can ride on whatever street we want, with no fear of being run over by some dork in a SpUV talking on their cellphone. Very liberating; I've been riding in it since 1994 or so.

Anyway, the cops have been called out against it. It's pretty incredible how much force they had arrayed against a small bunch of bike riders---it's not like a heavily-armed militia or anything, we're talking about 20-100 cyclists. I guess the citizens of Portland have been enraged about having to wait a minute or two longer in traffic one day a month (like they aren't the direct cause of the traffic themselves!) and have called out the police. So they show up.

I guess to protect the city against this huge radical gang of bike riders.

under the burnside bridge

Pretty intimidating group eh? (Which one? :-) (There were four squad cars, four motorcycle cops, a paddy wagon, and a big police SpUV, versus maybe 35 cyclists.) And proceed to harass, I mean, protect and serve, us. Here's them following us along:

cop escort

And then whenever they feel like it, they stop some poor cyclist and issue a citiation:

unlucky masser

Or better yet, knock him off his bike, take his bike away, kneel on his neck and cuff him.

takedown stay! stay!

Nice, eh?

Well, I was impressed. Call the police and complain, will ya? Who ya gonna call? I dunno. Here's the number for the toothless internal affairs division: (503) 823- 0236. Letters to the editor at the snOregonian might help. But the fact is we live in a fupduck world, and y'all don't give a rat's ass anyway.

Here are some other things to check out:
The rest of my photos from this ride
I like the ones of the cop with the shotgun.
Portland Critical Mass page!

We're not blocking traffic, we ARE traffic!