Anarchocyclist

it was a beautiful day out today (as seen here with the sunshine on the cherry blossoms :), and would have been a better night, if not for some silliness on the part of Vancouver’s finest.

I had some friends over for dinner tonight, and when they left i decided to go ride bikes with them part-way home. Near commercial, i turned back around and started coming home, myself. On my way, at fraser and kingsway, i was at a traffic light waiting for several cars to turn left in front of me on their green arrow. When the green arrow for them was finished, the cars kept coming…and coming…and coming. So, finally i put my hand up in the air and say “Come on, already!” as the last car turns left in front of me, and then continue on my way.

As i passed through the intersection, i saw a cop car waiting at the red and had the paranoid thought “gee, i hope that cop doesn’t do some stupid shit like come after me for not having a helmet”. So i duck into the next street (16th) and think “ok, so he won’t know where i am now.”

Turns out that that cop didn’t do anything, but there was an unmarked car a few cars behind me and they followed me when i turned. a block later, they turned on the lights and pulled me over. Asked me for ID, of which i had none, and then proceeded to berate me about not wearing a helmet and not having a light (although i normally have my light at all times, just not tonight). Then he reaches into the front pocket of my hoodie and pulls out my juggling ball i had there and asks me about it (this is illegal search). after some obsequious explanation on my part and authoritative lecturing on his, he finally says that i should walk my bike home, and they take off.

i end up walking for a few blocks just in case they come back around to check on me, and then take off. this time i take all the back alleys like i should have done in the first place. I stop along the way to phone my friends and tell them the story, partially to delay my arrival…i’m now quite paranoid that the cops’ll do a drive-by of my place to see if i’m getting there too fast and get mad at me for not walking my bike. then i decide to ride the rest of the way home.

alright…so if i wasn’t already paranoid enough, i’m riding down ontario street near Nat Bailey Stadium, and suddenly a black unmarked cop car drives slowly past me. Like, the exact same type of car that pulled me over, but luckily not the same cops. When i see that it’s different cops, my heartrate starts to go back down to slightly below a hummingbird, but then i see a bunch of lights off to the right.

I look over, across the field behind Nat Bailey, and there are 3 cop cars pulling over a car…and then a 4th cop car..and a 5th…and then the unmarked one that had been beside me…and then a 7th car with dogs. a bloody swarm of pigs. I can’t see what they’re doing because of the huge number of flashing lights, but i can hear the dogs barking like mad as they come out of the car. i get a little closer and see a big mob of cops gather round out of all their cars, but nothing much seems to be happening.

I ended up walking the last 4 or 5 blocks home from there, just in case the jerks who pulled me over are in the ‘hood. crazy night. i thought i was just going for a quick ride. After it was all over, i thought about it for a bit. Why didn’t the cops turn right and chase down all the morons who kept going through that light and give them ‘failure to yield’ tickets? They actually spent the time to come after me and shake me down. was it just because i made disrespectful gestures at the stupid drivers? That was the first thing they mentioned to me when they pulled me over…”I know you were mad at those drivers back there, but i could give you $150 to $200 worth of tickets right now if i wanted.” Who knows. all i know is that i’m takin the back alleys from now on.

Ride hard, ride free

This entry was posted on Saturday, March 12th, 2005 at 23:50 pm and is filed under Cycling, Front Page, General, Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.