errorCritical Mass Bicyclists Setup and Arrested

Tuesday, 15 August 2000

Los Angeles – At 6:20 P.M., PST, Police entrapped and arrested about 40 Critical Mass bicyclists near the convention center. Critical Mass is an event repeated across the world in which bikers get together and bike around a city in support of bike friendly policies.
Police forced the bikers to head North on 18th Street against the one-way sign. There was very little traffic on the street. The police had diagonally barricaded the intersection at 18th and Washington forcing bikers to head North on 18th Street. At the intersection of Flower and 18th, some of the group tried to get on a sidewalk but bike police surrounded them. The police corralled the bikers beneath the I-10 Freeway. This was very convenient for the police because there were no East or West avenues of dispersal due to large chain link fences on both sides. The police completely barricaded the northern and southern ends of the street.
This was an ideal place to barricade people and arrest them – there were no buildings around and almost no bypassers. A few bikers managed to head South through a gate in the chain link fence but a brigade of 40 riot cops in formation confronted them 40 yards away and forced them back to 18th street. The riot cops did not just appear out of nowhere – they were obviously placed strategically to seal off this avenue of dispersal.


After police completely surrounded the people, cops in tactical blue uniforms threw them up against a chain link fence and starting throwing the bikes into the roadway. The cops gave the bikers no opportunities to disperse. The cops did not begin any dialogue in order to reach any level of understanding. Cops with batons told them to get their hands on their heads.


About a dozen press and bystanders gathered on the corner coming from the Independent Media Center one block away. Two cops, Officer Sandwell and Officer Wilcox charged at the press and bystanders with batons out. Sandwell threatened one man standing on the sidewalk, “You want to be a part of this?” Sandwell was implying that if the man did not obey his “order” to get back then Sandwell would arrest the man for whatever charge Sandwell found appropriate. Sandwell pushed several people with the butt of his baton. One officer yelled, “Put the camera down.” Some citizens tried to talk to the cops and ask why they were being pushed back. The cops were surprised by this and seemed dumbfounded when anyone questioned their authority. In any event, the crowd of citizens had grown to about two dozen and they remained on the sidewalk forced to be about 40 yards from the prisoners.


Police tactical teams came pouring into the area bringing total police numbers close to one hundred. Four shotgunners and six cops with tear gas guns stood with their hands close to their triggers ready to fire into the small quiet crowd. At one point a woman asked, “What are they being arrested with?” The ranks of police in dark uniforms just stared at the crowd. One cop in a black uniform videotaped the crowd in an obvious attempt to get photos of everyone in the area.


Police CHIP (California Highway Patrol) units started arriving and binding the bikers with plastic handcuffs. One riot cop told the citizen crowd to head south to the other side of the street. A line of riot cops began moving down the street to enforce this order. Suddenly, six CHIP cops rushed the crowd to grab a bicyclist that had not been surrounded by the other cops and had been talking to the press about what had happened. The woman did not resist and the cops took her away.


Some citizens sang songs about freedom and liberty (“My country ‘tis of thee” and “This land is your land” while others chanted briefly (“Shame!,” “This is a police state!,” “Whose streets? Our streets!”).
One cop with a shotgun “made” a man standing on the corner with a scarf over his face. By this, I mean that the cop selected the man with the scarf, tracked him, told other cops about him, and perceived him as a threat “to be neutralized.” Quickly, a squad of 12 riot cops formed into a two by six formation and prepared to bum-rush the citizens to grab this man standing on the corner with a scarf on his face. A citizen alerted this man to what was about to happen and told him to split. He began to walk west on Flower Street towards Figouera Street. The police tactical commander moved up the street and followed the man with the scarf to the edge of the police ranks. The tactical squad waited to be given the order to run at the citizens and grab the man with the scarf. Eventually, the man with the scarf was too far from the edge of the police line for them to attack him in strength.


Then, the same cop with the shotgun made two other men with blue bandanas on their face half way up the block and the tactical team prepared to attack these two men. Again, a citizen told them what was going to happen and they beat it down the street.


By the time this reporter left the scene, it was not clear what the cops were going to do with the bikers that they had setup and taken into custody ostensibly for the safety of the citizenry of Los Angeles.

tremendous reporting.

sounds like the cops in l.a. are willfully violating the constitution, just like the cops in philadelphia.

what a sad day for amerika.

This is the second critical mass ride in recent weeks where there's been trouble. I still maintain that these rides are aggravating motorists more than they are achieving a more bicycle friendly atmosphere

Jim Davis
QMS-DC

There were virtually no motorists in this area of South-Central Los Angeles where these people were arrested.

Jim Davis' comments are nearly as frightening as the tactics
used by the LAPD and certainly as frightening as the agresso-repressed, smog-emitting, fat, yuppie, SUV drivers that law-abiding bicyclists have to put up with every day of
the year. If the simple fact that bicyclists are coming together and asserting their rights as a group bothers Jim Davis, what would he say about the aggravating atmosphere created by motorists who come together every day in groups a thousand times larger? It's cars that think they have a
primary right to the road and a right to pollute the environment that are the problem, not critical mass.