Go to qualitypolicing.com

Tag: critical mass

  • Ex-police officer Pogan convicted

    This is the guy who pushed over the bicyclist in Times Square. Pogan was convicted of filing false statements (saying that he was assaulted by the victim). Pogan was also convicted of a misdemeanor for attesting to the complaint’s truthfulness.

    Patrick Pogan, who was only on the job for 11 days, was acquitted on assault charges. Judging from the video, he looked guilty to me. But police should be given benefits of doubt on use of force. And I wasn’t in the court room or on the jury. So I’ll pipe down on the assault charge. The important thing is that Pogan was convicted and won’t be getting his job back. Good riddance to him. The NYPD can do better.

  • Bicylist-Assualting Cop Fired

    Bicylist-Assualting Cop Fired

    Police Officer Pogan, who tackled a bicyclist in Times Square, has been fired.

    I told you so.

    Here’s the the story in the Times.

    A friend of mine has claimed that there’s “more to the story” and that the officer was specifically trying to stop thisbicyclist. I don’t buy it. If that had been the case, he would have said something about it in his arrest report.

    Here’s the officer’s lie-filled arrest report, from The Smoking Gun.


  • Bicyclist-Assaulting Officer Indicted

    Bicyclist-Assaulting Officer Indicted

    I’m quick to give police the benefit of the doubt. I rarely feel good when an officer gets criminally charged. But an unprovokedassault on someone that could have been me? F**k ‘im.

    I’ve written about this incident before.


    The big offense, interestingly, isn’t for assaulting the guy. Early reports are that he’s just going to get a misdemeanor bang on that. Officer Pogan is going to get fired for creative writing in the felonious degree.

    According to theNew York Times:

    Officer Pogan arrested Mr. Long and charged him with attempted assault, resisting arrest and disorderly conduct. In his police report, Officer Pogan wrote that Mr. Long was obstructing vehicular traffic as he rode southbound on Seventh Avenue. After instructing Mr. Long to stop, Officer Pogan wrote, Mr. Long rammed him with his bicycle, causing the officer to fall to the ground and receive cuts on his forearms. Mr. Long then resisted arrest, Officer Pogan wrote.

    Who would have ever thought that there might be somebody with a camera? It’s not like it was Times Square…. Oh, wait.

  • More on NYPD vs. bicyclists

    More on NYPD vs. bicyclists

    If you need more proof that something ain’t right in how the NYPD handles Manhattan’s Critical Mass bike ride, you should watch this video on the blog, The Agitator. There’s an anti-police tone I don’t like. And overproduction. And half-assed legal knowledge (there is no Constitutional right you “wave” when you identify yourself to police. Ask Dudley Hiibel. And if you really are concerned about bargaining away Constitutional rights, why not focus on our horrible system of legal plea bargains?)

    Anyway… the juxtaposition of quotes from charging documents and video proof to the contrary is pretty bad.

    In George Kelling and James Q. Wilson’s classic “Broken Windows” piece, they talk about police being told to clean up a park because bums are harassing secretaries. So cops go in and bust heads and then, when the somebody like the ACLU inevitably complains, the brass throw those cops under the bus because they’re shocked. Shocked(!) that police officers would behave that way. Besides, they say, they never gave orders to bust heads.

    One of the great successes in applying Broken Windows in NYC was that the chiefs did everything legally and openly. Not always popularly. But they didget the bums out of the subway. And they did so legally.

    Why is that important? Because if you put police in an impossible situation and don’t tell them what to do, you shouldn’t be surprised when cops start being stupid.

    I didn’t relish being filmed as police officer because things can be taken out of context and used against you. But filming police actions is legal and, especially if you’re in the middle of Times Square, get used to it!

    Police departments willing to open themselves to public scrutiny are a good litmus test for a free society (that’s not my idea… but I can’t remember whose line it is). Generally, police in the U.S. do OK on that front. You want to go on a ride-along at your local police station? Odds are you can do it. That’s a good sign. Saying “no cameras” is a characteristic of repressive regimes. It’s not a good sign.

    I feel sorry for police officers placed in situations where they are duty bound to fail. But if you area police officer placed in such a situation, remember that you don’t have to join the mob. Nobody can force you to do anything illegal and nobody can force you to lie on a Statement of Probable Cause and sign your name to it. And if you do lie and get caught, you can be damn sure that whoever “made you” do it won’t be protecting yourass!

    So what if Iwere ordered to police Critical Mass and told to arrest anybody I legally could? Well, for starters I wouldn’t walk too fast. And come to think of it, I think an important part of policing such a “dangerous” event is making sure tourists, especially the good looking female kind, are safe from danger. I would protect as many as possible.

    If I felt I actually had to work because my sergeant was breathing down my neck? I would only arrest somebody doing something worse than just biking down the street. Open container? Scaring pedestrians? Yelling “fuck you” to police without ID? I might even grab somebody off their bike if they wouldn’t stop (I’d look for a pale and thin looking hipster). I wouldn’t knock anybody off.

    Finally, no matter what happened, I wouldn’t lie in my charging documents. As I write in my book, I may have violated the spirit of some laws (like loitering), but I never violated the letter of the law. Why risk your career to stop a person riding a bike through Times Square? It’s not worth it!

    Oh, and one last thing, I don’t know what you should do if you’re being arrested for no good reason. But screaming and screaming and screaming does not endear you to me, Ms. Lin. By the end of that video, even I was glad to see you go.

  • Officer assaults bicyclist (3): stupidy breaks out in groups

    Leave it to Bike Snob NYC to give a beyond-the-obvious take on the take-down. Here is an edited version:

    By this point most people have seen the footage of critical mass cyclist Christopher Long getting tackled by NYPD officer Patrick Pogan. This is a classic example of the eternal conflict between the younger, more progressive generation and the older, more conservative one—except of course that the rider was 29 and the officer was 22.
    …
    Similarly, the standard of what constitutes heroic behavior is also lower in 2008. The bike-tackler, Patrick Pogan, is a third-generation police officer. I wanted to know more about the Pogan family, so I strapped on my “investigative journalist” helmet and Googled vigorously for almost two full minutes. I finally uncovered this New York Times article from 1991…. I will go ahead and assume that the Pogan mentioned herein is the bike-tackler’s father:
    So it would seem that tackling someone riding his bike is in 2008 what rescuing someone from a wrecked subway train with the jaws of life was in 1991, because Pogan Sr. not only stands by his son (as you’d expect him to) but is also proud of him for what he did:

    “He’s my son. I’m proud of him. He’s third-generation that’s been serving the city,” said Pogan Sr., who was at home in Massapequa Park, LI, today and said he had not seen the video. “These people are taking over the streets and impeding the flow of traffic. Then you gotta do what you gotta do,” said Pogan, 51.
    …
    Yet try as I might, it’s hard for me to feel outrage…. One of the most important truths I’ve learned is that where there are crowds there is stupidity. When large numbers of people get together, stupid things happen, and you’re almost always better off simply getting as far away from the crowd as possible.
    …
    One of the things that make cycling so great is that it enables you to avoid crowds and pointless delays. Few things are more satisfying than effortlessly weaving your way through a traffic jam. So while I’ll begrudge nobody his or her Critical Mass, personally I don’t understand the appeal of forming a crowd and creating a pointless delay. And it is a delay, whether you’re in a car or on a bike.

    I once accidentally got caught in a Critical Mass ride while out riding. I felt like a dolphin ensnared in a tuna net. One second I was sailing along, and the next I was trapped among a bunch of people with rickety bikes rolling on wobbly, rusty brown steel rims on the verge of collapse. It was like watching a Beatles “Yellow Submarine”-esque cartoon LSD sequence where all the bicycles were rolling on pretzels.
    …
    People do need to see other people out there on bikes. They need to become accustomed to them so they learn to respect them, and they need to see how practical and effective they can be so they consider riding them themselves. Many cyclists illustrate this day after day…. Effectively, you’re a Critical Mass of one. Meanwhile, a mob of people on crappy bikes blocking traffic one day a month isn’t a “mass” at all. At best it’s a party. At worst it’s effectively just one big stupid person.

    Stupidity breaks out in groups, and when people gather expect stupid things to happen. You may or may not encounter a stupid person or stupid thing individually as you go about your day, but you’ll definitely encounter one in a crowd, and Christopher Long encountered one in the form of Patrick Pogan. On the other hand, intelligence travels alone, but it travels swiftly, and consequently it’s not only more effective, but it also generates much better word-of-mouth.

  • Officer assaults bicyclist (2): Let Them Ride

    Ray Kelley, the commissioner, just came on the radio and said he “couldn’t fathom” why the officer, Pogan, did that.

    That means the officer is officially being fed to the dogs… hung out to dry… you might even say thrown under a bus.

    And since the officer is still on probation… well, it’s time to dust off the resume.

    You can read the lying officer’s report at the smoking gun.

    And my previous post here.

    One comment asked a good question: what should police do?

    Three simple words: Let them ride!

    As much as it pains a few particular people in the NYPD, you can’t control hundreds of people on bikes. Especially if they’re willing to get arrested. Police have to work with Critical Mass, just like police do in many other cities. Provide an escort. Join the fun.

    That means that once a month, yes, bikes go unrestricted through the streets. Yes, it might slow cars down. But so do double parkers and the 4th of July Parade.

  • Officer assaults bicyclist

    Luckily somebody was filming. Uh, officers, you should always police like people are filming. Especially when you know they are.

    As a former cop and current bicyclist, I don’t get is why the NYPD is so hellbent against Critical Mass. Other cities manage just fine. Police escort. A little traffic disruption. A lot of bicyclists have a good time. Nobody gets hurt. Nothing so wrong in that.

    Here’s the article in the New York Times.

    As a police officer, I’m willing to cut police a lotof slack for aggressive behavior in aggressive or chaotic situations. I’m also willing to cut police officers a fair amount of slack for honest mistakes. I also don’t think a few seconds of video clip taken out of context should ruin an officer’s career.

    But the context here isclear. The officer, Pogan, is guilty of unprovoked aggravated assault. And as a New York City taxpayer, I don’t want to pay for lawsuits from bad policing. I don’t like it one bit.