Major Incident at Critical Mass bike rally
From:
Cam Gordon
Date:
2007 Sep 01 18:02 UTC
Short link
This is very discouraging and unfortunate. I am looking into what went wrong
and will continue to do so and welcome any accounts or observations on or off
list. I will also plan on joining the ride again next month and will encourage
other policy makers and peace activists to do so as well as Peter wisely
suggests.
Cam Gordon
612 296-0579
> To: <email obscured>> From: <email obscured>> Subject:
[Mpls] Major Incident at Critical Mass bike rally> Date: Sat, 1 Sep 2007
13:51:03 +1200> > I just spoke with my brother via cell phone, apparently there
has been a major incident at the Critical Mass bike rally, where a large group
of bike riders, 100 to 200 strong, rides the city streets. This incident seems
to have been sparked when a biker strayed across the yellow line and the police
arrested him. I don't know the details yet, but there were dozens of police
involved, people were maced, cuffed, and force was used to subdue individuals,
and there were apparently several arrests. It seems there were some anarchists
in the crowd, and the police may have been provoked, and there was a large
overreaction in both the crowd and by the police. This is extremely
unfortunate.> > I think the city government needs to react to this immediately.
Up until now Critical Mass has largely been free of incidents and has gone on
for many years peacefully. I have only been a bystander to these events and
always found them amusing, and good natured as the bikers take an equal footing
to automobiles on our city streets. These types of events happen frequently in
the biking community, and there is the potential for long term escalation if
steps are not taken to diffuse the situation due to the nature of the
incident.> > If there are policy makers reading this, or members of the Peace
Community, now would be a good time to step in and try to defuse the situation.
At the next critical mass event, it would be good to see members of the peace
community there, as well as people who can negotiate with the police in order
to deal with disturbances, and to avoid misunderstandings. The last thing
Minneapolis needs at this point is a Seattle style riot in the lead up to the
GOP convention, and this has all the earmarks for creating an environment that
is going to bring out a severe backlash. Also our police are overworked,
working 60 hour weeks in some cases. We don't need to waste our resources on
this.> > Peter Vevang> NE, Minneapolis> Info about Peter Vevang:
http://forums.e-democracy.org/contacts/petervevang> > This topic's messages may
be viewed at: http://forums.e-democracy.org/r/topic/4toa7s8VdeZKCkvRsQ5Vgp>
.