Clarification: I mistakenly dropped a word when commenting on whether the officer made any hand gestures to signal the bicyclist to stop. The sentence should have read that the officer made no hand gestures.
Kudos to The Smoking Gun for posting a copy of the arrest report filed by New York City policeman Patrick Pogan.
He's the officer who a tourist videotaped body slamming a bicyclist in what appears to be an unprovoked attack last Friday. The case is rapidly playing out on YouTube, where the clip has been watched nearly 900,000 times since Sunday night, when it was posted.
This is why I love the Web and I respect The Smoking Gun. They get paper. Thesmokinggun.com is famous for posting copies of important documents before anybody. They let readers decide for themselves what people say by publishing court filings, e-mails and memos.
Most of the information in the copy of Pogan's sworn complaint has been reported but there's a couple things I haven't seen anywhere else. Pogan wrote "upon instructing the defendant to cease the above-described conduct..."
I've watched that video a dozen times and it's hard to see any evidence that Pogan said a word before driving his shoulder into the bicyclist. He certainly makes no hand gestures for the rider to stop.
Pogan says that the rider was obstructing vehicular traffic, and weaving "in and out" of the center lane "thereby forcing multiple vehicles to stop abruptly or change their direction in order to avoid hitting" the rider.
In the video, traffic already appears to be stopped as bicyclists, who were participating in Critical Mass, a monthly protest against the reliance on motor vehicles, ride past Pogan. The officer has been stripped of gun and badge until the conclusion of the investigation.
There's another little tidbit that didn't make its way into previous stories on the incident. In Pogan's report, right above the line where he is supposed to sign his name, is a sentence that reads: "False statements made herein are punishable as a class A misdemeanor."
A New York City police officer was stripped of his gun and badge after a video posted on YouTube showed him body-checking a bicyclist during Friday's Critical Mass bicycle ride.
The video (see below), which was shot by a tourist and posted on the video-sharing site Sunday, shows bicyclists whizzing past uniformed officers during the Times Square protest. One officer begins to stride across the street, picking up speed and violently tackling a bicyclist into a crowded sidewalk.
The video sparked an immediate public outcry and led the department to place the officer, identified by several news agencies as Patrick Pogan, 22, on desk duty pending the outcome of an internal investigation.
The bicyclist, Christopher Long, 29, was charged with blocking traffic, resisting arrest, disorderly conduct, and assault, prosecutors said.
Critical Mass is a leaderless mass bicycle ride typically held on the last Friday of each month in cities around the world. The event, which originated in San Francisco in 1992, is alternately referred to as a celebration and a protest against automobile-choked streets.
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