Here's an oped I just submitted to the NYT, based on a letter I sent to the Mayor and police commisioner after my experiences last night. If you missed it, they arrested 34 cyclists.

Stop the Critical Mass Crackdown

I last did a “Critical Mass” ride about 10 years ago. It was a large and peaceful event, and the police rode with us to keep the group flowing smoothly and minimize the event’s impact on motorists. It was great to ride in the safety of a large group of cyclists, since when we ride in the city we daily risk death or serious injury at the hands of motorists (my cycling route to work passes a memorial for Elizabeth Padilla, who only a few weeks ago was crushed to death on her bike by a truck). Since the Critical Mass ride last August, I had heard that arrests had been made, and that bikes had been confiscated. Reading press accounts and knowing from personal experience some riders had always been fairly radical, I assumed that to warrant such an extreme reaction from the NYPD, those arrested must have really gotten out of hand. But lately, I have heard troubling things regarding the prosecutions--such as the police getting caught doctoring evidence (as reported in the NYT)--and I wanted to see for myself what was really going on.

So, I joined the ride on Friday, and what I witnessed was appalling. At the pre-ride rally, the police were present in large numbers, but they made no attempt to dictate terms or conditions for the ride. Once the ride departed, the part of the group I could see followed every traffic law to the letter, and the police were no where to be seen. We slowly rode many blocks, and then, suddenly, someone ahead yelled “turn back, it’s a trap” and I saw police detaining cyclists a block away. I could not believe what I was seeing, again thinking that the group ahead had acted inappropriately. The group turned away, and then a few blocks later, I heard another rider yell “look out!” No more than fifty feet away, I saw police on scooters suddenly run into the middle of the intersection, and, without any warning, scream at and grab cyclists who had not been acting inappropriately in any way or even violating any traffic laws. In fact, the police only detained people as they moved forward when the light turned green. Only by running away from police officers--something I have never done in my life--did I avoid arrest. Since the police surprised the group, they could not possibly have observed the detained cyclists for more than several seconds, so the only criteria they could have used for detaining people is that they committed the apparent crime of riding on bike on a Friday evening. Riding away from the group, I talked to several other cyclists who were not even on the ride who happened upon those intersections and narrowly avoided arrest themselves.

Tonight, I lost a tremendous amount of respect for our Mayor and also lost a tremendous amount of faith in our police force. In this time of terror threats, this absurd policy is seriously damaging police/community relations, wasting enormous amounts of tax money and police resources, and permanently damaging the reputation of our city throughout the world, and not just with radical anarchists. What must tourists think when they see peaceful cyclists wrestled to the ground by large groups of helmeted police? What about those, like me, who are just regular citizens who love this city and ride bikes? One of the first people to get her baseless cycling arrest overturned worked for the Wall Street Journal. She was hardly some anti-globalization radical.

I am 41, and have never attended a protest in my life. My politics do not match those of the many of the groups involved in Critical Mass. I have long been a forceful advocate for Mayor Bloomberg, but I call on him now to renounce and put an end to these ludicrous, dangerous, wasteful tactics of harassing and attempting to intimidate ordi