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RR: August 2000
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Personal account of MPLS Critical Mass

(Modified on 7:14pm Sat Aug 26 '00)

What happened to me and the mass on the last friday of august.

Personal account #2,
August Twin Cities Criti by iz 1:17pm Sun Aug 27 '00
(Modified on 8:37pm Sun Aug 27 '00)

I was arrested an booked on "fail to obey officer". i had no ID on me, so it took 10 hours to process me. when the officer said through the loud speaker of his car, you are under arrest, i stopped my bike and waited to be arrested. my thinking was that we were protesting and that's part of the gig. after i stopped, i realized i was the only rider thinking along these lines. so, a little jail time hassle, it would have been fairly easy to get away. Rolling down University after an AWESOME hold up on Hennipen and a 3 mph trip through downtown Tiananmen Square facing-off-a-tank was running through my mind... it was total bullshit that they arrested anyone. we opened up the left 2 lanes of 3 lanes, which went down to 2 lanes and we left 1 lane open. very resonable, but sgt kelly probably got a bunch of shit for letting us cork the hennepin bridge, so i think that's why the macho arrest went down. we're meeting at loring park on monday at 7 p.m. to discuss next month's mass. more to follow on the website too.

below is my letter i'm sending to the editor of the paper, i'm still editing it, but it's a story of sorts. Concerning Saturday's Metro/State section's front page article on Critical Mass by Maria Elena Baca. I was the rider taken into Hennipen County jail because of the charges resulting from the Mass & I had no ID (I guess we have to carry ID or we'll spend 8 hours in jail, but I'll leave that for the MN Civil Liberties Union to sort it out).

The Mass:

I found the article to be balanced, however the list of biking laws only focused on the biker's responsibilities. On our website you'll find a much more comprehensive index and links to official State and City sites. http://www.angelfire.com/punk/mplscriticalmass/ A key driver's responsibility is to allow 3 feet of space to a biker. I also take that to mean I have 3 feet from parked cars as well, I call this the Laura Bulow Lane. She was killed this summer in DC when a driver opened his parked car door and bounced her into traffic. Laura was an active participant in Chicago's Mass for the last few years. The Twin Cities August Mass was a ride to protest the car centric culture we find ourselves in today. While I agree with that, I was not in favor of using Critical Mass as the vehicle. However, I support the xerocracy's decision and methods. I would have felt better about the decision and methods had the other 23 riders surrendered to the police as I did. We'll discuss it in the meantime and open the floor for discussion at Loring Park on the last Friday in September. My input will be to draw attention to two simple issues: add bike racks to all buses as soon as possible and connect all the bike lanes for a truly coherent bike experience in the Twin Cities. i'll probably end it here.

point made, although this police state we live in really bothers me so, i might include this although i already got my ACLU plug in the first paragraph.

Civil Rights

It was unreasonable for the police to not allow 25 riders one "car" lane for safety reasons. We were sharing the road with the cars at that point. My sense is the arrests were a macho/testosterone overload situation playing itself out. I'm sure Sgt Jack Kelly got a few calls about the bridge traffic being backed up and he couldn't let a bunch of bikers make him look bad so he sent officer #2288 & some others out to pick up those bikers, any biker will do, just make some arrests. I was surprised Maria Elena Baca didn't mention that she was arrested for 5 or 10 minutes by #2288 as well. She requested to know what charges (I was silent, I wouldn't say anything to the police here, this is based on what I read and saw of their handling of the genetics conference, obviously this police state has full community and corporate support, yours included Star Trib (citizen talks, police beats citizen, police get away with beating) and she was told that Sgt Kelly would supply the charges soon enough. I was notified 45 minutes after being arrested that I had failed to comply with an officer's order. I was also surprised Miranda's little spiel is not part of the package anymore, or perhaps I watch too many TV cops in action. There was an incident of civil service, after an hour and a half #2288 placed my cuffs in my lap as opposed to behind my back as I waited in the back of the car because the booking processors were "taking their sweet time". For those of you like me who have never been arrested, that was huge. Carry those ID cards folks, make sure they know who you are at all times.