Reasons why I was arrested during last nights critical mass

tom fosse, 30.07.2005 15:36

This is a short write-up by one of the people who were arrested and put in a squad car by police during last nights critical mass.

I don't need to get into details about how the rest of the critical mass went before I was arrested/detained. You can look at other peoples accounts for information if you're interested in that.

The critical mass had just been cut in half by a yellow light. Half went through and others stopped behind to avoid running a red light. Police took the opportunity to cut in front of both groups as this happened. Some who were cut in between chose to take off down allies. I unfortunately chose to lock my bike with a friend and go see what was happening with the group who had been stopped at the yellow light. I ran down the street just in time to see police tackle a man on a bike who had a baby carriage attached to end of his bike. After he was pulled to the ground another officer violently pushed over his baby carriage with the baby inside. Other people have written about this in more detail, so I'm not going go anymore in depth about it.

Seeing this enraged me, as it should anyone. I started yelling at police and flicking them off. It seemed pretty reasonable among options existing within the law. An officer saw me do this and was visibly distraght by my and others disregard for their authority. He rushed over and told a girl next to me who was doing the same thing as I that she had to go arcoss the street and join the rest of the group who were already sitting on the sidewalk waiting to be finger printed and ticketed. I stayed where I was and while I was looking at something else and suddenly felt a hand grab my right arm very hardly. I instinctively pulled away from him and got out of his grasp. It was something it seems like anyone would do while being aggressively attacked. A second later I was on the ground with 3-5 other officers on top of me. They had grabbed me by my neck and violently pushed my face into the cement. As I fell officers yelled and told me that I was resisting arrest. I replied that I was just falling to the ground because people were on top of me. It's hard to help an officer arrest you when you're being pushed face first into the ground. Whatever I would have done would have been resisting arrest to them.

No offense man... 03.08.2005 - 01:20 but yelling and flicking off the cops might just have been the stupidest thing you could have done in that situation. Did you honestly expect no reaction from them? If the cops shut it down next month too, please, for the sake of everyone else, keep your mouth shut. evan> e-mail:: esolochek@hotmail.com