Posted on 12/16/2008 9:41:42 AM PST by BGHater
A grand jury indictment is expected to be unsealed Tuesday in the case of a New York City police officer shown in video footage knocking a bicyclist to the ground in Times Square.
Officer Patrick Pogan has been told to appear for arraignment on charges in the indictment in state Supreme Court in Manhattan, said his attorney Stu London.
Sources familiar with the investigation said the charges against Pogan are expected to be misdemeanor assault and felony filing of a false instrument.
"He denies any wrongdoing in this matter," London said. "The video in question doesn't show the reckless behavior of the bicyclist prior to Officer Pogan taking police action. He was clearly disruptive and in accordance with the type of behavior the office was trained to prevent or stop."
Pogan was stripped of his badge and gun and assigned to desk duty after video emerged from the July 25 Critical Mass bicycle ride. The footage, shown widely on YouTube, showed Pogan shoving Christopher Long off his bike.
After the event, a monthly bike ride held around the world to draw attention to alternatives to motor vehicles, police said Long was arrested because he was obstructing traffic and had deliberately steered his bicycle into an officer.
In September, charges against Long were dismissed. Long's attorney, who had said his client is considering suing the city, could not be reached Monday.
(Excerpt) Read more at newsday.com ...
The cop may have been wrong, but Critical Mass cyclists are nothing but self-indulgent bullies.
He better plead for the mercy of the judge. I can’t see how he can argue this was the way he was trained.
I can't watch the video here at work, but if it is the one I remember the bicyclist was clearly not steering his bike towards the officer. If anything he was steering away and the officer had to go out of his way to take him down. One big obvious lie on the charge makes me doubt everything else the officer said.
Maybe both were a-holes, but the cop was the one on video attacking, lying on official charges and doing both under color of authority.
I guess your tag line means nothing to you. While I don’t defend CM, I do defend the right to protest regardless of standing.
No sympathy for the cop from me. He needs to lose his badge. Nothing worse than a bad cop.
That officer really shouldn’t have done that. But I watched it five times for the sheer enjoyment. Whamo! LOL!
The police officer targeted the bicyclist out of a group, advanced on him with four steps, and body checked him in such a way as to knock him off his bicycle, and possibly into the crowd on the sidewalk.
Had he wanted to stop and cite the bicyclist, he would have used different tactics. He could have forced the bicycle to swerve towards the curb, then grabbed the bicyclist. Instead, what he did was a hunter-prey attack, that could have harmed innocent people as well.
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Yes, but it’s a bad to meet non-violent protest with violence.
Cop should burn HARD.
Not only did he assault the cyclist, he wrote up a false police report to say the cyclist tried to run him down.
The cyclist was charged with multiple misdemeanors and FELONIES before the tape proved his innocence.
How the NYPD can put him at a desk is beyond comprehension.
Why aren’t you posting the WHOLE picture?
The right, where you see the shadow in t he road, there’s a cop car that was assigned to escort the cyclists.
It shows the cop swerving out of the way to save his own ass.
“To Protest and Swerve”, indeed.
Soon, just like 5 months ago, the "Police Brutality Apologist Squad" will arrive to tell us that the video "clearly" shows the bicyclist steering TOWARDS the officer. Even though what it CLEARLY shows is a bicyclist steering AWAY from an onrushing pedestrian, until he is pretty much FORCED to straighten out his wheels or hit a 6" curb. It also pretty clearly shows that IF the officer had not continued charging into the PATH of the the bicycle, that the two would have been about 3' away from each other as it went by him.
Alright.... So, NOW the PBAS can jump down MY throat and tell ME how WRONG I am. They'll even be able to put words in my mouth and thoughts in my head as they pontificate that because of my abhorrence for police misbehavior, I MUST "hate" ALL police and that I MUST be some kind of evil "anarchist".
It's okay... I know the drill...
If you’re ever thinking about doing that to me, you’d better hope the first impact kills or completely disables me. I do NOT ride unarmed.
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Two reasons....
1. Union contract protections.
2. That pesky US concept thing about innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Or are you one of those who think that everybody but cops deserve that right...
It's always the cover up that gets you.
If you ever deliberately disrupt traffic like the Critical Mass activists you’ll be lucky to get off a shot.
What can I say? Sometimes you question authority, and it turns out they are right.
In any case I would not preclude the possibility that there was no intent on the officer’s part. He could have been trying to walk to the curb and was dodging left at the same time the cyclist was also dodging left. At that point, the officer could either accelerate to the left (which would lead him to the safety of the curb), or make a blind leap to the right, which could put him in the path of another bicycle, for all he knew. Well, it turns out the bicycle also increased his turn in the same direction, so the only thing for the officer to do at the end of it all is to brace for impact.
It all looks pretty funny when it’s on a sit-com, but less funny when it is on the street. But this sort of thing happens every day.
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