In spite of being a cyclist myself, I can't say I agree that it was unprovoked.  All we see is the moment when the cyclist was removed from his bike -- and what we do see here is that a policeman is walking towards the edge of the street and the cyclist chooses to zip right in front of him.  However you portray it, that's not a proper manner in which to conduct yourself.  At a miniumum, pedestrians (like this police officer) have the right of way.  You'd think a militant cyclist of all people would know this.  The police officer's report that he was zipping in and out of traffic causing vehicles to swerve could well mean "bikes" rather than "cars," and would sound to me like most other Critical Mass cyclists i've met on the bike trail...  zipping between me and someone walking in the other direction, going 25 on a trail marked with 20mph limits.

Critical Mass was supposed to be raising awareness of cyclists and pushing to "Share the roads."  All they really seem to do is raise awareness of how some cyclists are jerks who can't follow traffic laws.  "Share the roads" means just that -- cars and bikes, not just bikes.  That's what bike trails are for, and they have rules too.

Between this out of NYC and the report of a driver being assaulted in a CM rally in Seattle, I think the majority of cyclists need to make it known that CM doesn't represent them, and we're happy to share the road with cars.  In fact, we'd all prefer bike trails so cars would never have to deal with us.  

Alright, the guy in the second video (being hit by the baton) deserved what he got. I don't care what happened before the video started, if the police are trying to arrest you, you let them. You resist and you get stick.
Maybe there are extenuating circumstances, but that's the type of thing you take up in court, not with the officers while they are trying to arrest you.

Now the first video (with the cyclist)…I don’t know if the group of cyclists were breaking the law or if the police officer had orders to arrest the cyclists, but I don’t think that makes any difference in this case. The police weren’t standing there with their arms out trying to stop the cyclists, and it didn’t look like the officer in question made any attempt to tell the cyclist to stop. It looked like the officer just picked one cyclist at random and attacked. That’s unacceptable.
Truly, if the police had orders to stop the cyclists and/or arrest them, then they should have been out in force, not just two guys in the middle of the street without any sort of riot gear. Frankly, the officers are lucky that the cyclists didn’t all team up on them and show them some mod rules, especially after an unprovoked attack like that in the video.

It’s these types of videos that make me not like the police. I’m a generally law abiding person, but the fact that there are officers like this out there make me slightly uneasy.

Of course, there's also this story...

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2008074874_webcriticalmass26m.html

Some cyclists are just plain jerks.  With stories like these out there, I'd be concerned today to ride my bike on the streets, more due to behavior of cyclists and the rudeness they project, than due to car traffic.  Since we have a good trail through our neighborhood, this subject hasn't been a concern for me.

I love seeing protestors get their chops busted like that!   Blocking traffic in a major city is enough justification for a body check to each and every one of those annoying jerks.

Two completely different sides to NYPD on these videos.

Bike asault cop needs to be arrested.

Arresting cops need a commendation for showing restraint in not cracking the dude's head open.

There is no law prohibiting bikes on a public road way.  The officer's behavior was a shameless, unprovoked attack on a unarmed, defenseless civilian. The "officer of the peace" should be stripped of his badge and uniform, and should face criminal assault charges.

While this does look a lot like some overzealous action by the police officer, I'm sure it doesn't tell the entire story, either.  Another thing that's really clear is that this 'Critical Mass' movement has jumped the rails, and is in full-scale train wreck status.  As a cyclist myself, I'm very much in favor of more help to give the rights to cyclists that they so deserve, but blocking traffic, assaulting people (see news story from Seattle), and hassling police officers is not the way to do it.  Critical Mass is currently *damaging* the cycling community, in a BIG way.  What's next, molotov cocktails at SUVs?  It's not that farfetched, given that some CM forums have hints on how to permanently disable vehicles.

The video has been pulled ...

It is undeniable that the cop used excess force on the biker. Now, i got fixated on what happens afterwards, when one of the cops hands over the bike to another biker (woman?) who came riding up to them. You can see her shuffling away with the bike without being stopped by anyone.  Did the biker who got checked steal the bike? Is there any information on that? i find it suspicious that the cops would just hand over the bike to a bystander and let them scurry away with it.

Hi Will.

The smoking gun has the police statement.  It's worth a look.  (The best part is the last line where it says a false statement is a misdemeanor.)

http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/years/2008/0729081bike1.html

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