Warning - thief on bike evenings nr Park Pl + Vanderbilt

eastbloc wrote: I received a summons today after pulling my bike up onto the corner at Prospect and Vanderbilt to go to the grocery store.

For riding on a sidewalk, presumably?

Now I know not to bike near Vandy while the police are doing their job.

King without a crown wrote: Although discretion could've been exercised, you did in fact break the Law. I'm not saying that I agree with the Officers, but it does sound like they were doing their job. Either way, welcome to the nabe!

From my limited experience in the nabe, people break the law quite a bit here, and police turn quite a few blind eyes to quite a number of infractions far more serious than mine.

I can appreciate the selective attention to bicyclists in the area in question, but there's no reason not do more than check out these 'violators' and give them a friendly warning if they don't fit the MO of the suspect.

The mandatory court appearance, the fact that the cops themselves said it would probably be dismissed, where's the logic in this enforcement? It's a complete waste of my time and taxpayers' money.

eastbloc wrote: [quote=King without a crown]Although discretion could've been exercised, you did in fact break the Law. I'm not saying that I agree with the Officers, but it does sound like they were doing their job. Either way, welcome to the nabe!

From my limited experience in the nabe, people break the law quite a bit here, and police turn quite a few blind eyes to quite a number of infractions far more serious than mine.

I can appreciate the selective attention to bicyclists in the area in question, but there's no reason not do more than check out these 'violators' and give them a friendly warning if they don't fit the MO of the suspect.

The mandatory court appearance, the fact that the cops themselves said it would probably be dismissed, where's the logic in this enforcement? It's a complete waste of my time and taxpayers' money.

Had you had a previous unpaid ticket you would have been locked up until you saw a judge. Happened to a few people on this board. How much is the ticket for?

Chekhovian wrote: I thought the dude was caught, but I guess not if it's still terrorizing the block.

um, the incident of "the guy who got a ticket for riding his bike on the sidewalk" and the "thief on bike" may not be related to each other.

Three scenarios:
1. A cop gave a sidewalk biker a ticket because he was, um, biking on the sidewalk. When asked why he was the subject of selective enforcement, the cop responds that biker met the profile of an already-been-caught thief on a bike simply to shut the biker up.

2. A cop gave a sidewalk biker a ticket because he was, um, biking on the sidewalk. When asked why the selective enforcement, he responds that he met the profile of a thief on a bike because the cop was unaware that the thief-on-bike has already been caught.

3. A cop gave a sidewalk biker a ticket because he met the profile of a wanted, prolific, thief-on-a-bike. When he didn't turn out to be the thief-on-a-bike, the cop decided that at least he'd at least write a ticket, even though he was hopeing to get to make an arrest.

I vote for scenario 1 ...mostly because we we've heard from a lot of people that the theif was caught, and we've received no additional reports of theft. (ruling out scenario 3)

Scenario 2 seems unlikely b/c of a how high of a profile case this was.

Edited because it seems I like to spell "thief" as "theif"

Flexichick wrote: Scenario 4: since the biker already states that he was a "very well-lit commuter" he has no idea what really happened - he just woke up with a ticket in his hand :-)

It's true, my scenarios only try to figure out why the cop did his job.

I've always believed that if I only get caught at something 1% of the time, I should not complain when it happens.

More Unsolicted Advice to Eastbloc:
Bring good reading material to court, you'll be waiting there a while.

Avoid sitting next to the guy who is presently intoxicated, and is there to answer a "urination in public" ticket ...you don't want the judge to think the two of you are together.

And, if you are new the the neighborhood: welcome! In some neighborhoods, you get baked goods. PH and CH are a little different.

In case it wasn't clear, I don't as a practice ride on the sidewalk. I pulled up on the completely empty sidewalk to lock my bike up to go grocery shopping.

Did I technically ride on the sidewalk for a split-second? Yes, but it would have been evident to anyone, including the police van which had been behind me for several blocks, that I was not using it as a thoroughfare.

I don't really care about the material or temporal impact of the summons. I'll go to court, talk to the ADA, and be out of there. It was just an unnecessarily dick move on the part of the cops. I found it offensive.

For what it's worth, the cop said that just the day before yesterday someone was robbed by a bicyclist on the block, and that they're specifically out there targeting cyclists as a result. That it was their only job on that day, to harass cyclists.

As a motorcyclist it's an NYPD tactic I'm familiar with, as I got a ticket for riding with my helmet visor up in July (yeah, it's a violation; what do you know) and the cop gave me the same "I'm out here just to look for motorcyclists with their visors up" story.

KWOC - I think he's saying it was a dick move because he was only on the sidwalk for a second, not like he traveling down the entire block, or even a few yards. Isn't this were 'discretion' is supposed to come in? Yes, he was violating the letter of the law, but certainly not the spirit, which is to keep the sidewalks safe for pedestrians.

King without a crown wrote: Why is that a "dick" move? You were the one riding your bike on the sidewalk and the Officer was just doing his job and issued you a summons for the offense. He even offered you an explanation as to why they were out there and you are now posting on the very same topic that the Officer was just talking about, therefore corraborating what he was saying.

Wait, so does this mean that the other kid with the jacket that got arrested (discussed in the thread above) was the wrong guy? :-k

Or was the "explanation" a bullshit non-sequitur, like invoking 9/11 as a reason to harass people for legally photographing cops?

jml wrote: KWOC - I think he's saying it was a dick move because he was only on the sidwalk for a second, not like he traveling down the entire block, or even a few yards. Isn't this were 'discretion' is supposed to come in? Yes, he was violating the letter of the law, but certainly not the spirit, which is to keep the sidewalks safe for pedestrians.

Regardless of whether he was riding his bike on the sidewalk for a second or not he still in fact broke the Law. Do you think a Traffic Enforcement agent cares if your meter expired for a minute or an hour? Isnt it possible that the OP came off like a dick to the Police Officer therefore utilizing discretion might've become an unlikely scenario?

King without a crown wrote: [quote=jml]KWOC - I think he's saying it was a dick move because he was only on the sidwalk for a second, not like he traveling down the entire block, or even a few yards. Isn't this were 'discretion' is supposed to come in? Yes, he was violating the letter of the law, but certainly not the spirit, which is to keep the sidewalks safe for pedestrians.

Regardless of whether he was riding his bike on the sidewalk for a second or not he still in fact broke the Law. Do you think a Traffic Enforcement agent cares if your meter expired for a minute or an hour? Isnt it possible that the OP came off like a dick to the Police Officer therefore utilizing discretion might've become an unlikely scenario?

I seriously doubt I came off as a dick. My strategy for police encounters is to be polite and cooperative, and it generally keeps me out of trouble. Hence my relative astonishment as to the outcome of this encounter.

I'm far from being some belligerent bicycling anarchist, my friend. I appreciate the hard work police have to do, and I'm conscious of the respect gap, particularly in developing neighborhoods. Again, this is why I generally enjoy mutual respect, which was not the case this time.

As far as the legal argument is concerned, is it a "dick move" to stop someone for doing 26 in a 25? Maybe not, if you had reason to believe there was something else suspicious going on.

But once you determined that was not the case, it's most definitely a dick move to write them a summons.

Either your logic is tenuous, King, or you're not explaining this very well.

How does it benefit the robbery investigation to summons me for pulling up on the sidewalk?

Your civic education is lacking, Chekhovian. The police do not collect the money from any fines levied on me by the court.

Moreover, most of these cases are dismissed, actually pull cops _off_ the streets so they can go sit with me in court, waste their time, the time of court administrators and squander my own productive forces for the day, almost certainly resulting in a net revenue _loss_.

Hence the core cretinism of this summons-issuing policy that precludes me from pleading no-contest and simply paying the ticket, which is what I would have done.

And I wouldn't even bother posting about such an event if the cops didn't specifically mention the robbery a day earlier. The thread had been idle for weeks since everyone had assumed there was a suspect in custody.

No one is arguing whether or not there was an infraction of the letter of the law. Whether or not it was a dick move is purely a matter of opinion. That being said, yeah - I think it was a dick move.

stacey wrote: [quote=WhyFi]No one is arguing whether or not there was an infraction of the letter of the law. Whether or not it was a dick move is purely a matter of opinion. That being said, yeah - I think it was a dick move.

I don't understand - if they are there looking for the punk robbing people, why would they deter from that fact, especially since they left their post to give him a summons.

This is where I get upset with the police. When you call them about a quality of life problem they give you the whole "were busy catching real criminals" and then they do this.

But didn't we get information that there was an arrest? KWAC didn't answer about whether they got the right guy or not, but I haven't heard of any more of these incidents since the guy was arrested. If this is basically a closed case, then all this huffing and puffing about the "rash of robberies" is hand-waving bullshit. If they did get the wrong guy then it might be reasonable, but KWAC has been oddly silent about that.

The best way to stop a rash of robberies is bring in the under cover dermatologists division.