Recent Streetsblog NYC posts about Police Misconduct

Park Slope Cop Brings About Sidewalk Cycling, Then Tickets It

By Noah Kazis | Apr 10, 2012 | 37 Comments

We at Streetsblog aren’t big fans of sidewalk bike riding. As we’ve said before, if the police truly must take time away from targeting the most dangerous traffic crimes, like motorist speeding and failure-to-yield, sidewalk riding is the kind of infraction for them to worry about. Pedestrian space is scarce enough in New York City. […]

NYPD Sends Law-Abiding Vietnam Vet Cyclist to the Tombs

By Noah Kazis | Apr 4, 2012 | 18 Comments

What is it about riding a bike that makes someone such a tempting target for police harassment? The scene last Friday night, as reported in Gothamist, was the perfect magnet for NYPD misconduct: a Critical Mass ride headed to Union Square to participate in an Occupy Wall Street action. The department’s public safety priorities were […]

A Long Explanation of Why the Biking-While-Sexy Story Is No Hoax

By Noah Kazis | Jun 14, 2011 | 31 Comments

While it’s shocking to think that, in this day and age, a New York City police officer would stop and harass a female cyclist for biking in a short skirt, as Jasmijn Rijcken said happened to her last month, it also seems to fit the zeitgeist, coming amidst the well-publicized NYPD bike crackdown and following […]

Saudi Arabia on the Hudson: NYPD Officer Stopped Cyclist For Wearing Skirt

By Noah Kazis | Jun 10, 2011 | 131 Comments

When Jasmijn Rijcken, the general manager of the VANMOOF bicycle company, traveled from Amsterdam to New York in late April, she was excited to see what she’d heard described as a city that had embraced bicycling. It wasn’t NYC’s new protected bike lanes that defined her ride through the city, however, but the New York […]

NYPD Bike Blitz Cheat Sheet Tells Cops to Enforce Bogus Traffic Laws

By Noah Kazis | May 9, 2011 | 65 Comments

Sometime between the ticket one cyclist received for turning right on red into Central Park and the ticket another received for riding with a bag slung over her handlebars, it became abundantly clear that NYPD’s “Operation Safe Cycle” is not really about safer cycling. Instead of applying the NYPD’s vaunted data-driven policing techniques to encourage […]

NYPD Traffic Cop: “My Objective Is The Cars, Not The People”

By Noah Kazis | Apr 8, 2011 | 46 Comments

The NYPD’s decision to crack down on cyclists committing even the most minor infractions — while an epidemic of deadly driving continues unabated — should make it clear that the police department is no friend to those on two wheels right now. A report we received today from Christine Berthet, the co-founder of the Clinton/Hell’s […]

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