Time’s Up Press Conference at City Hall on Excessive Critical Mass Expenditures

For the past 28 months, the NYPD has been harassing law abiding cyclists on the Critical Mass bike rides. Now the NYPD is proposing new parade permit rules that target the Critical Mass rides but would also affect thousands of other New Yorkers. It’s time for New York taxpayers to be told of the outrageous amount of money the Bloomberg administration is spending on its harassment campaign of cyclists. A very detailed, thorough cost analysis of these expenditures has been completed by economist Charlie Komanoff and Time’s Up!, along with the assistance and support of civil rights attorneys Norman Siegel and Gideon Oliver, and the organizations FreeWheels and 100 Blacks in Law Enforcement Who Care.

(Video footage will be made available documenting excessive expenditures on past Critical Mass rides by the Time’s Up! video collective.)

Come blow the lid off the Bloomberg Administration’s excessive expenditures selectively targeting Critical Mass cyclists.

Speakers will include:

  • Charlie Komanoff, Economist
  • Norman Siegel, Civil Rights Attorney
  • Mark Taylor, Assemble for Rights NYC
  • Marquez Claxton, Retired Police Detective, served 20 years with the NYPD, from 100 Blacks in Law Enforcement Who Care

ALSO ON STREETSBLOG

NYPD Has Spent $1.32M to Suppress a Monthly Bike Ride

|
Charles Komanoff, flanked by Marquez Claxton and Norman Siegel, at City Hall this morning. Time’s Up took its campaign for safe bicycling into the economic arena this morning with release of a report documenting the Bloomberg administration’s squandering of New Yorkers’ tax dollars in suppressing the Critical Mass bike rides. With the City Hall steps […]

Cops on Scooters Trail Greenway Cyclists

|
May’s Bike Month Critical Mass reportedly drew more participants than usual, and NYPD responded by handing out a passel of trumped-up summonses. No surprise there, but as this video (from glassbeadian via Gothamist) shows, officers on scooters went so far as to follow riders down the Hudson River Greenway. Barbara Ross of Time’s Up thinks […]

Records From Critical Mass Court Case Spell Out NYPD Overkill

|
David Goodman at the Times’ City Room blog has an excellent piece up this afternoon about the resources NYPD spent to police Critical Mass bike rides in the two-year wake of the 2004 Republican National Convention. A federal lawsuit stemming from those police actions reached its conclusion this week, with the city paying out nearly […]

Charges Dropped Against Mass Cyclist Assaulted by Cop

|
On Friday, charges were officially dismissed against Christopher Long, the Critical Mass cyclist who was slammed to the ground by NYPD Officer Patrick Pogan in July. After he was knocked off his bike, Long was charged with attempted assault, disorderly conduct and resisting arrest. The official account of the incident, which was witnessed by dozens […]