Cyclists Arrested during Critical Mass in New York City: A Personal Account from one arrestee. Critical Mass is an organized, monthly bike ride that promotes an alternative transportation method to cars in New York City, an overpopulated, highly-polluted city that is condensed enough to make bicycle transportation a viable option. The riders usually meet at Union Square on the last Friday of every month and depart on a two hour ride through the streets* of New York, slowly and peacefully applauding the choice of cyclists throughout the city. In the past, police officers have been present to help control traffic in intersections and to keep the pace of the ride consistent. * In New York City, bicycles are only allowed to ridden on the street. Failure to do so is a violation of the law and results in a traffic ticket and an appearance in court. I was one of the 246 critical mass bikers arrested on Friday night for supposedly “refusing to disperseâ€, “disorderly conductâ€, “parading with more than 20 other bikesâ€, and “disrupting and blocking vehicular traffic.†This is what I recall. Union Square – 7pm Bikers move out down Broadway with clear assistance and participation from NYPD officers. Men in suits were already beginning what would be a long night of mixed signals and deceit, simultaneously halting vehicular traffic for the bikes and variously demanding bikers to stop for oncoming vehicular traffic. Many times the Critical Mass was halved and quartered by men in suits physically, sometimes violently, stopping bikes, throwing riders to the ground, forcing buses and cars into intersections already filled with bikes, encouraging chaos and confusion, and all the while traffic cops politely watched and held cars out of intersections, guiding the bikers along their splintered journey directly into the hands of the riot police. It was a confusing and frustrating night for Critical Massers, who are used to having a nice police escort on their rides. For months and months the police have been present on the rides as guides and escorts, and now here they were again acting both for and against the riders. Times Square – 8:30pm The Mass had finally regrouped in Times Square and was heading south on 7th Avenue, slowly coming to a halt, practically walking. As we approached 35th Street, bikers were moving back up 7th Avenue from 34th Street, being pushed by riot police on bikes and motorcycles. The police were pushing everyone west on 35th Street and I assumed we were being encouraged to head out to the West Side Highway to avoid RNC traffic at Madison Square Garden. Riding down 35th Street I saw the south side of 8th Avenue blocked by NYPD Scooter Units. It was obvious we were being siphoned into a snare. As the first riders reached 10th Avenue, they hit a wall of bicycle police and they were forced back east on 35th Street into the swarm of oncoming Critical Mass riders. In a moment of clarity a few riders were able to clear their way to a side street before the oncoming riot police and scooter units sealed the snare, actually pinning the last fleeing rider against a wall with a motorized scooter. Quickly the police brought out orange mesh fence and tied off both open ends of 35th Street. Everyone inside the fences was arrested, with no order or chance to disperse. 35th Street – 9:00pm At least 150 riders and as many police stood face to face in the orange mesh snare. For at least 15 minutes there were no words spoken. Riders were no longer on their bikes. They were standing, quietly, waiting for the next move. Some thought maybe we were being detained as an effort to break up the ride. Then the paddy wagons and buses showed up to the scene along with 30 to 40 junior officers, many new to the force, some ready and some unprepared for their first on the job mass arrest and detainment training. It was like watching your first day of school from afar, with Senior Officers in white NYPD shirts explaining over and over again to the blue-shirted beginners the process that they were to follow. “Bag their belongings. Five bodies to an officer. Hand-cuff them. Sit them down. Stand them up.†And quiet chaos began. A confused system that would last all night and leave the younger officers disgruntled and tired. Some officers took ID’s away from their ‘bodies’, some officers didn’t. Some took phones away and some bagged them with the riders’ belongings. Some took shoe-laces. Some took keys. Some left keys in the pockets. Some bagged wallets. There was no rhyme or reason and they knew it and we knew it. After an hour and a half, many of the riders were finally hand-cuffed, grouped with an ‘arresting officer,’ and photographed (4 polaroids per rider, taken with their bike and the arresting officer). No one was told their charges. No one was read their rights. Two hours after being initially detained, I was finally taken in an off-duty MTA bus to what would turn out to be the NYPD’s new Guantanamo Bay-esque detainment center, complete with square chain-link fence pens, razor wire, and oil covered concrete floors. Upstanding, bike-loving citizens of New York, teachers, fathers, mothers, sons and daughters, an entire spectrum of the population, were now being detained and used as training for the NYPD under the guise of the new ‘terrorist-defeatingâ€, US citizen protecting, rights-revoking Patriot Act. Ask no questions and give no rights. Pier 57 (NYPD Detainment / Command Center) – 11:00pm I was held in this health hazard for 16 hours, with no rights as a U.S. citizen. As we arrived, we were escorted off the bus into a pen where we waited with our arresting officer outside for our turn to be searched, de-handcuffed, and deposited in one of the many concrete-floored, chain-linked pens. There were three benches and a dirty, oil-covered concrete floor in each pen, which held 40 to 50 people at once. There were two portable toilets and one, small water hose in the corner. This Pier 57 was originally a Bus Depot, uncleaned by the police and surely a health hazard with all the carcinogens grimed-up on the floor and the poor ventilation. The overhead lights were kept on throughout the night and for up to 16 hours, detainees were allowed no phone call, no sleep, and no explanation of their situation. Fathers and mothers where not allowed to call home to tell their children where they were. 15 and 16 year old children where not allowed to call their parents. Innocent bystanders, arrested illegally, were not allowed to call into work, or report to their families their location and situation. And there all around us, the young officers swarmed in confusion, afraid to ask again for directions on which papers they were to fill out and how to process their detainees. Senior officers barked orders or stood around laughing with their friends. Slowly, one by one, every thirty minutes, detainees were taken to one of only 6 desks set up for processing the confiscation of personal belongings of each of the detainees. As each detainee was given a voucher for his belongings, he was placed in another of the pens to await departure to Central Booking where he was finally to be placed under arrest. I spent eight hours awaiting a voucher for the confiscation of my personal belongings. I spent another eight hours awaiting my actual removal to Central Booking. In that 16 hours, I was given a small Dixie cup for water, a power bar, and one small single-serving box of cereal. I was given no explanation of my charges, no phone call, and no opportunity for medical attention. The lights were never turned out and therefore I was given no opportunity for sleep. I was covered with and forced to inhale the dangerous carbon bi-products that covered the grimy concrete floor of this fifty year old bus depot. All of this for riding my bicycle on the streets of Manhattan as part of a monthly ride, long supported and guided by the police, promoting and encouraging the use of bicycles (especially as an alternative mode of transportation during the RNC) versus cars in an overcrowded, heavily polluted city. Some others, at least 6, faced the same fate and were not even a part of the ride. One man in my cell was on his way to work in a Wall Street law-firm. He was dressed in a suit and obviously not a participant in Critical Mass. He lived on the street that was snared and was arrested along with all of us. Two men were on their way home with groceries. The police threw away the groceries and arrested them along with the rest of the crowd. Is the Patriot Act so important that innocent people can be deprived of their rights for following their daily routines or participating in peaceful group events? Who is really afraid in this country and who is really the enemy? Something has got to change. 8:00am – Pier 57 Buses are departing for Central Booking with 10 to 20 detainees per bus. They seem to leave every thirty or forty minutes. We wait in our pens, still devoid of rights. The disorganization of the police is apparent. Names are called over and over again from people who had already been sent to Central Booking. There is no master list. Polaroid pictures from the night before are used to determine which detainees are in which cell. Guards are obviously confused. Senior officers show up to fix the situation. It is only confused more. More departed names are called. A bull-horn is introduced into the mix. Original ‘arresting officers’ are still fighting through their paperwork. Some look extremely distressed, some voice their distress and their frustration with the entire situation. One guard tells us that he doesn’t want to be involved with this and that “it’s a waste of everyone’s time and money.†Well, why then is it happening, we ask. “It’s trickling down from the top. It’s those people that want it.†This turned out to be a common opinion voiced by many of the officers with which I came into contact. It was a disaster and they knew it. They weren’t prepared to deal with so many people and they were not trained to handle the inconsistent and arbitrary procedures that they were being forced to follow by the Senior Officers. 12:00pm – Pier 57 Finally my name is called and I am escorted out of the pen (after 15 hours), re-handcuffed, and placed in an NYPD Department of Corrections bus, equipped, especially for the escort of hardened criminals, with four individual cages, a ten seat cage in the back, and four escorting officer seats in the front with the driver. Twenty males, including myself, were placed in the back and females were placed two to a cage in the individual cages, handcuffed and cramped. The journey from Pier 57 to Central Booking took 45 minutes. And again I thought, “all this for riding a bicycle.†12:45pm – Central Booking, NYPD More disorganization. The ‘arresting officers’ were supposed to have stayed with their five ‘bodies.’ They didn’t. Unfortunately, the confusion at Pier 57 had led to the splitting up of each ‘arresting officer’s†group of bodies. In my case, one of the detainees from my group was transported to Central Booking at 10:00am. The rest of us didn’t arrive until 12:45pm. He sat, handcuffed, in a hot, un-air-conditioned bus on a 90 degree day for almost three hours, awaiting our arrival (he was also an Indymedia press representative). When we arrived, our ‘arresting officer’ was waiting. He was allowed finally to bring the aforementioned detainee off the other bus and we were released from our bus. We were placed in chain gang handcuffs and escorted into the Central Booking where we were finally to be arrested and booked after 16 hours of detainment without our inalienable rights. We were placed into a holding cell with our handcuffs still in place. Chain gangs of non-violent bike riders going to the restroom together. And finally, after 16 hours of detainment, we were given our 50 second, local phone call, a bologna sandwich, and a small carton of milk. Again, the attitude of the guards and officers was “why are these people here?†What a waste. Surely we were there as an attempt to scare dissenters and protesters and to keep people off the street. Our own police force is now using scare tactics against its own citizens to deter the basic right of free speech. Who else uses scare tactics in their favor? 3:00pm – Central Booking, NYPD We finally said good-bye and good-night to our ‘arresting officers’ and we said hello to another 9 hours at the hands of the NYPD Correctional Department guards. In the lengthy process of finger-printing and photographing, we were moved in our chain gangs from cell to cell to cell, at one point we were even held within the slender walls of a visiting chamber. No more than three feet wide, this cell held 20 to 30 of us at a time as we awaited our chance to be frisked and photographed. There was still confusion from the officers as to what we could have on our persons. We were also told that we could see an EMT, but not to tell them we were sick, for that would mean a longer stay, while all the signs on the walls read “there will be no delay for your release if you are sick and must be taken to a hospital for treatment.†Why so much duality? 5:00pm – Central Booking, NYPD We arrived at our final holding cells and saw our first free use of a phone. Many people called the National Lawyers Guild, which was so kindly assisting in the expedition of our release. They had a hotline and gave information to us throughout the rest of the evening. They even had lawyers on hand to provide counsel and representation free of charge to the arrestees that were to face an arraignment before their release. One by one, we were called out of the cell and either given a DAT (Desk Appearance Ticket) and released or taken upstairs to a final cell, where legal counsel was provided and we were to await for an arraignment. 11:00pm – Central Booking, NYPD My name is called and I am taken along with 6 other prisoners to a new and final cell to await legal counsel and arraignment. We are given cheese sandwiches and milk by the nice guard, as most of the guards at Central Booking were extremely kind to us, echoing the attitudes of many of our ‘arresting officers’ that this was all a waste of everyone’s time and money. A public defendant is appointed to me and she informs me that the DA is offering me an ACD, essentially an adjournment of the case for 6 months at which time all charges are dropped if I am not arrested again within that 6 month period. So, I plead Not Guilty and accept the ACD. One hour later I am ushered into the court room with 8 other prisoners and the judge stealthily dismisses each of us, with no personal acknowledgement, just a quick recitation of our dismissal and a glance of affirmation at time wasted and money spent on the illegal and inhumane detention of hundreds of harmless, non-violent, upstanding New York citizens, out for a ride to promote the benefits of bicycle transportation in a crowded, over-polluted, car infested city, as an obvious ploy to strike fear in the hearts of all those who would dare dissent or gather to show their desires to make positive changes in and for this country that they all dearly love.