Mayor Canute cracks down on forces of nature

(And forces of nature crack right back)

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Colin Moynihan, a New York Times reporter, being arrested while covering last month's Critical Mass ride.

November 12, 2004

New York cyclists have been enjoying a "Critical Mass" ride on the last Friday of every month for the last half-dozen years, and the police, after some initial hysteria, got used to it.

Recently, however, the Mayor apparently got a little too exhilarated by the rigid suppression of dissent achieved during the Republican party rally last summer (just call us Newyorkemburg). He decided that it would be fun, and burnish his image as Giuliani epigone, to suppress Critical Mass.

Since Bloomberg is a corporate, white-collar authoritarian, rather than just a thug simpliciter like Giuliani, he wasn't content merely to unleash the cops as the former Duce would have done. No, Bloomberg wanted the majesty and legitimacy of the courts on his side, and he went to a Federal judge, William H. Pauley, and asked him to ban Critical Mass.

Our own Charlie Komanoff wrote a fine op-ed column for the Daily News, and submitted testimony to the court.

Thanks to much good work by our friends at Time's Up! and others, the judge resoundingly decided against the Mayor.

December 4, 2004

Experience keeps a hard school, said Ben Franklin, but a fool will learn in no other. He might have added that there are fools so foolish that not even experience will teach them anything.

Such, it seems, are our Mayor and his police brass. Undeterred by their initial reversals in Judge Pauley's court, they came back for more humiliation. The City's chief traffic engineer, DOT Deputy Commissioner Michael Primeggia, filed a remarkably silly affidavit insisting that Komanoff's testimony was riddled with inaccuracies, decrying the Critical Massers' lawlessness and blaming them for "severe traffic disruptions."

Komanoff was as delighted by this opportunity as Brer Rabbit in the briar patch, and composed a rejoinder.

Sadly, the civil-liberties lawyers representing Critical Mass apparently didn't want to address the larger social issues Charlie raised, so they only used part of his work. The whole document is well worth reading, though, and we think it's too bad the judge didn't see it.

Primeggia's lame contribution was followed by a juicy display of arrogant imbecility from the almost laughably porcine Deputy Chief Bruce Smolka. Smolka was promoted to command of Manhattan South after his previous command, the notorious "Street Crimes Unit," achieved national notoriety for the police murder of street vendor Amadou Diallou by Smolka's shock troops.

In his new job, Smolka has distinguished himself by his heavy-handedness, brutality, and contempt of civil liberties running our own little Tien An Men during the Republican convention.

Chief Smolka may be a formidable guy with a nightstick, but he was not so impressive on the stand. His embarrassing performance contrasts sharply with the brilliant testimony of Matt Roth, representing Time's Up, later in the transcript.

December 23, 2004

Cyclists got a nice Christmas present, and the Mayor and cops got egg in their face from Judge Pauley, who decided that the City's arguments were groundless. The judge's decision is well worth reading.

May, 2005

The city's folly continues, with heavy-handed repression of the rides by hundreds of cops, with scooters, paddy-wagons, power saws (for confiscating chained bikes) and even helicopters. Why helicopters? We don't know, but cops love 'em.

Amazingly enough, right in the middle of this slow-motion pogrom, the League of American Bicyclists (LAB) invited a top NYC cop, Michael Scagnelli, to speak at an LAB conference here in NYC. Among other distinctions, Scagnelli has played a supporting role in the repression of Critical Mass, backing up the heldentenor Bruce "Benito" Smolka. Right Of Way protested this surprisingly boneheaded move on LAB's part.