time in the slammer
So Thursday night I went on an all night bike ride with my history of the City of New York class with Professor Ken Jackson. I borrowed my friend PJ's cousin's bike for the ride. I'll describe that bike ride after this. Right now, however, I think I should detail my very first arrest. This is long, but oh so worth it.
The morning AFTER the all night bike ride (after 5 hours of sleep) I'm on campus and I run into my friend Jon Epstein (a junior on the sailing team) and he's telling me about this time he went to a regatta and they got cut off by a critical mass bike ride. Danielle and I had talked about doing such a thing this summer in Santa Barbara and I thought it had sounded pretty cool. Anyhow, I've been looking for bikes online because I wanted one for here to ride around the city and on Friday I'm looking on craigslist and there's postings about the CM ride that night. So I tell Jon and tell him he should get a bike and we can go do the ride. So he borrows one and a couple of his friends decide to come along too.
So we meet up with his friends at 107th street and head down to Union Square (14th street) at about 6:40. That means we had 20 minutes to ride 5 miles. Which is not only a 15mph average (ok, maybe a little less since we got there a few mins after 7, but still), but a 15mph average on NYC streets which was AWESOME. I mean, my life flashed before my very eyes several times as I dodged and ducked and basically every minute I was alive was a minute I cheated death. One of Jon's friends, Justin, is a bike messenger and he was like don't worry I won't get you killed. Unfortunately I don't trust him not to get himself killed, so I couldn't really trust him with my life. But it was so fun.
Oh yeah, so we all meet up and another of Jon's friends, Patrick, has done this a few times before and mentioned that people might get arrested. I think I'd also heard some mumblings on the internet about arrests, but just wasn't too concerned, you know? Can't happen to me. Anyhow so we get down there and there's people saying like "keep moving quickly so it's harder for them to arrest you" and people pointing out people who were undercover cops. So we hang out for a while and I think we probably got moving around 7:30. We just rode around and it was fun, I mean obviously a bit of a different crowd, but we did sort of the same things we'd done the night before. There were people who would put their bikes and themselves in front of cars so that when the light turned green they couldn't go, and that way the whole group could pass. We chanted things like "more bikes, less cars!" stuff like that and it was fun. Most of the motorists seemed pretty supportive (in my opinion), only a few got really angry.
We pretty much rode all around the village and even on the west side highway at one point which was pretty cool. I think there were probably about 150 people in our group because I heard that's how many went on Jackson's class ride and it seemed like a similar amount. I heard that for last night's ride there were multiple starting points, and I don't think we were all together (since I got arrested 30 mins later than some people) but that's about how big my group was. We tried to stay near the middle of the pack to avoid being picked off. Anyways so we've been riding around for a while and, honestly, we're feeling like pretty hot shit when people start yelling "COPS" "SCOOTERS" "TURN AROUND" and we do, but this cop on a scooter cuts me off and grabs my bike. He gets me off and cuffs me with these plastic handcuffs (think wire ties, but wider), takes pictures of me with my bike, gets my name, etc. At this point what's going through my mind is "oh my god, not my bike," because I knew that they would take it away and hold it for a while and I felt bad because it wasn't mine. Meanwhile there's people wearing "National Lawyers Guild" hats taking down names and a bunch of people taking pictures. I'm not gonna lie, at this point I was pretty scared.
Anyhow, we stand around for a while, me and a couple others who got caught at that point, we got a lot of support from the people around. Families walking by and being like this is so disgraceful. But anyhow, so they throw us in the back of this truck, me and another girl and two other guys. And they drove us around for a while and then finally we get to a precinct on 8th St. and Avenue C. They take us inside and kind of move us around a little bit, P.S. we're still in these plastic handcuffs, which are really uncomfortable. Anyhow, so noone really knows what's going on. The guys who arrested us are cops from Queens who came in just to do this and I think they were bringing all the bikers to this precinct so basically it's just chaos and noone knows what's going on. Lots of people asking questions, asking us questions (not just name, address, etc. but like... "who's your officer?" and stuff like that) basically very disorganized. My "AO" (arresting officer) was pretty nice, I liked him. Eventually after some complaints he took off my plastic handcuffs and metal handcuffed one hand to my chair. Which was good because then I could finally call Jon (I could feel/hear my phone ringing in my bag but couldn't answer it). That was fun. He seemed pretty freaked out "so are there like, police around?" "do you need bail?" etc. which is understandable cause that's how I was at first. I later found out he had an exciting escape, but more on that later. Then there were about 20 of us there, but I was the only one with a hand free, so I'd get people's phones out of their bags and hold the phones up to their ears so they could talk to people. I mean, what can I say, being arrested together is a bonding experience.
So my AO's pretty on the ball and he's trying to get my processed through, which involves getting me in a cell so he can go check and make sure there are no warrants out for my arrest. I get searched by a female officer and then they open this cell and tell me and this other scary drugged up woman who we later overheard and gathered stabbed someone(?) to get in. But I guess someone told that woman cop that we were different, so I got moved in my own cell. They made me take off my belt and take my shoelaces out of my shoes (so I can't hang myself) but let me take my wallet in with me. Weird. Anyhow, I get joined by 3 other bikers soon, and we're chillin. I mean we chat about life, etc. we're in basically a whole cell block (can I call it that? I want to.) of bikers. The four of us are in a cell that is approx. 5' x 7.5" with a bench that barely would fit all of us (one girl sat on the floor) and the most disgusting sink/toilet that I've ever seen. Anyways, jail was pretty fun for a while. We talked and laughed at the preposterousness of the situation. One of the girls in my cell was from NYU (who incidentally had a string in her jacket, both shoelaces and a lanyard on her keys- enough hanging implements for the whole cell) and she was funny. At one point this occurred (and when I say everyone I mean the whole cell block):
NYU girl: Gimme a J!
Everyone: J!
NYU girl: Gimme an A!
Everyone: A!
NYU girl: Gimme an I!
Everyone: I!
NYU girl: Gimme a L!
Everyone: L!
NYU girl: What does that spell??
Lots of people: Jail!
Guy in the next cell: I can't read!!
I mean, how is that not cool? But jail gets boring. Quick. Especially since Richard Stokes (my AO) let me down and although I was first in, I was the last out of my cell. I got to do some quality pacing though after everyone else left. I felt like a real prisoner. Around 1am though, I got to go and there were people waiting outside with legal help, coffee (the coffee was actually just brought by some people who lived on the block and saw the commotion and were "pro bike"), cookies, bagels, candy, etc. So that was cool. I called Jon and I didn't have enough money for a cab, but I mean I was really far from Columbia and didn't wanna take the subways so late at night (they run so infrequently, I'd be by myself) but one of his friends had a car so he and Justin came to pick me up. I chatted with the people outside and got some idea of what was going to happen to me. I'll explain later. Anyhow, we chatted and so I mean, I just did this ride cause I think it's a cool cause and I thought it would be fun. However, after being arrested, I'm much more dedicated to the cause. I mean, I love cars, but I think it's also a great vision to have people bike more often and have it be safe and easy, especially in New York where it is particularly difficult. So I'm talking to the people outside and they said the same thing, that they just did it for fun until they got arrested and look at them now, they're standing outside a police precinct at 2 in the morning. Clearly this police action is working...
Anyhow, so I got to call my parents at this point. They didn't seem to concerned, I even got a "congratulations" at the end of the call. Jon and Justin came and picked me up and... we were on our merry way home. Oh yeah, so it was like 3am when I got home and I had to a) take a shower cause jail is GROSS and b) get up at 7:30 the next morning to go sailing.
So now my rant, which I will attempt to keep short. The prior night, we did essentially the same thing. I mean, it's a little different, we're making noise and not attempting to get out of the way of traffic with critical mass, but on Jackson's ride (all night ride for history class)we're still putting bikes in front of cars to stop them from moving. And we get a police escort. Some cop decides he's going to be our little guardian. Then we stop for 30 mins at the Fulton Fish Market (SO COOL, p.s.) and as we're walking back to our bikes we notice this long line of police cars and ambulances. Turns out their cop buddy called them down to help us out. Then the next night I'm getting ARRESTED?? WHAT? Not to mention that the arrests didn't start until the Republican National Convention was here last August. The cops used to ride along with them and support them, but then that all changed. The cops know it's BS too. My AO was like yeah, I've ridden in this before, this is so dumb. But I get it, he's doing his job. There was even a "We still ride" bike ride to say that people weren't going to stop riding just because of arrests, but noone got arrested there cause it wasn't technically a "critical mass" ride. Come on people. And I mean yes, I agree, bikes ARE a menace to the roads in Manhattan. Weaving in and out of cars, almost running people over, stuff like that. But that's the point. People shouldn't have to be scared to ride their bikes. There is nowhere for us to safely ride and that's ridiculous. That's how I feel about the matter and you can sure as hell bet that now that I've been made an example of, I'm much more of an activist than I was before.
In the end here's what's happening to me: I'm being charged with Parading without a Permit. My arraignment is set for October 31st. I will be meeting with some lawyers and other helpful people who will go over what will happen to me in court. I would love to fight this and go to trial, but I don't know if I have it in me, so I might just take an ACD (Adjournment in Contemplation of Dismissal) if they offer it to me. It means that if I don't get arrested for 6 months, the DA will dismiss the charges and the record will be sealed. There are already lawyers working on getting the bikes back, and I hear they're good (10 days last time). Other than that, we'll see what happens. I don't regret the experience.
Plus it has become fodder for many jokes, all of this morning at the regatta we were amused by the idea that I should have turned in Jon in order for a lesser charge to myself. It was discussed that I would give him up and tell them he'd be at the sailing van at 116th and bway at 2:30 on tuesday. I had this great mental image of him looking at me like "how could you" and me crying saying "I'm so sorry Jon!!" and cops dragging him away while everyone stared. Which might not be funny to you all, but it's pretty hilarious if you understand the situation. Terence also had a great one.
Blaine: Come on, you gotta stand up to the authorities.
Me: Oh yeah, and what did that get me last time?
Terence: A girlfriend.
Jon's escape was essentially death defying and even more ridiculous. He said he turned around and got out, but at the next bunch of intersections there were cops and he actually got chased around a block twice by this cop car and finally ducked into a group of people waiting to get inside a bar. He said at one point he's coming to this intersection and he goes straight through a line of cabs, into an intersection with green lights for the cars coming at him on either side and makes it through. I mean... really, are the cops making the streets safer?
So that's that, I'll keep you posted, hope you enjoyed the story.
The morning AFTER the all night bike ride (after 5 hours of sleep) I'm on campus and I run into my friend Jon Epstein (a junior on the sailing team) and he's telling me about this time he went to a regatta and they got cut off by a critical mass bike ride. Danielle and I had talked about doing such a thing this summer in Santa Barbara and I thought it had sounded pretty cool. Anyhow, I've been looking for bikes online because I wanted one for here to ride around the city and on Friday I'm looking on craigslist and there's postings about the CM ride that night. So I tell Jon and tell him he should get a bike and we can go do the ride. So he borrows one and a couple of his friends decide to come along too.
So we meet up with his friends at 107th street and head down to Union Square (14th street) at about 6:40. That means we had 20 minutes to ride 5 miles. Which is not only a 15mph average (ok, maybe a little less since we got there a few mins after 7, but still), but a 15mph average on NYC streets which was AWESOME. I mean, my life flashed before my very eyes several times as I dodged and ducked and basically every minute I was alive was a minute I cheated death. One of Jon's friends, Justin, is a bike messenger and he was like don't worry I won't get you killed. Unfortunately I don't trust him not to get himself killed, so I couldn't really trust him with my life. But it was so fun.
Oh yeah, so we all meet up and another of Jon's friends, Patrick, has done this a few times before and mentioned that people might get arrested. I think I'd also heard some mumblings on the internet about arrests, but just wasn't too concerned, you know? Can't happen to me. Anyhow so we get down there and there's people saying like "keep moving quickly so it's harder for them to arrest you" and people pointing out people who were undercover cops. So we hang out for a while and I think we probably got moving around 7:30. We just rode around and it was fun, I mean obviously a bit of a different crowd, but we did sort of the same things we'd done the night before. There were people who would put their bikes and themselves in front of cars so that when the light turned green they couldn't go, and that way the whole group could pass. We chanted things like "more bikes, less cars!" stuff like that and it was fun. Most of the motorists seemed pretty supportive (in my opinion), only a few got really angry.
We pretty much rode all around the village and even on the west side highway at one point which was pretty cool. I think there were probably about 150 people in our group because I heard that's how many went on Jackson's class ride and it seemed like a similar amount. I heard that for last night's ride there were multiple starting points, and I don't think we were all together (since I got arrested 30 mins later than some people) but that's about how big my group was. We tried to stay near the middle of the pack to avoid being picked off. Anyways so we've been riding around for a while and, honestly, we're feeling like pretty hot shit when people start yelling "COPS" "SCOOTERS" "TURN AROUND" and we do, but this cop on a scooter cuts me off and grabs my bike. He gets me off and cuffs me with these plastic handcuffs (think wire ties, but wider), takes pictures of me with my bike, gets my name, etc. At this point what's going through my mind is "oh my god, not my bike," because I knew that they would take it away and hold it for a while and I felt bad because it wasn't mine. Meanwhile there's people wearing "National Lawyers Guild" hats taking down names and a bunch of people taking pictures. I'm not gonna lie, at this point I was pretty scared.
Anyhow, we stand around for a while, me and a couple others who got caught at that point, we got a lot of support from the people around. Families walking by and being like this is so disgraceful. But anyhow, so they throw us in the back of this truck, me and another girl and two other guys. And they drove us around for a while and then finally we get to a precinct on 8th St. and Avenue C. They take us inside and kind of move us around a little bit, P.S. we're still in these plastic handcuffs, which are really uncomfortable. Anyhow, so noone really knows what's going on. The guys who arrested us are cops from Queens who came in just to do this and I think they were bringing all the bikers to this precinct so basically it's just chaos and noone knows what's going on. Lots of people asking questions, asking us questions (not just name, address, etc. but like... "who's your officer?" and stuff like that) basically very disorganized. My "AO" (arresting officer) was pretty nice, I liked him. Eventually after some complaints he took off my plastic handcuffs and metal handcuffed one hand to my chair. Which was good because then I could finally call Jon (I could feel/hear my phone ringing in my bag but couldn't answer it). That was fun. He seemed pretty freaked out "so are there like, police around?" "do you need bail?" etc. which is understandable cause that's how I was at first. I later found out he had an exciting escape, but more on that later. Then there were about 20 of us there, but I was the only one with a hand free, so I'd get people's phones out of their bags and hold the phones up to their ears so they could talk to people. I mean, what can I say, being arrested together is a bonding experience.
So my AO's pretty on the ball and he's trying to get my processed through, which involves getting me in a cell so he can go check and make sure there are no warrants out for my arrest. I get searched by a female officer and then they open this cell and tell me and this other scary drugged up woman who we later overheard and gathered stabbed someone(?) to get in. But I guess someone told that woman cop that we were different, so I got moved in my own cell. They made me take off my belt and take my shoelaces out of my shoes (so I can't hang myself) but let me take my wallet in with me. Weird. Anyhow, I get joined by 3 other bikers soon, and we're chillin. I mean we chat about life, etc. we're in basically a whole cell block (can I call it that? I want to.) of bikers. The four of us are in a cell that is approx. 5' x 7.5" with a bench that barely would fit all of us (one girl sat on the floor) and the most disgusting sink/toilet that I've ever seen. Anyways, jail was pretty fun for a while. We talked and laughed at the preposterousness of the situation. One of the girls in my cell was from NYU (who incidentally had a string in her jacket, both shoelaces and a lanyard on her keys- enough hanging implements for the whole cell) and she was funny. At one point this occurred (and when I say everyone I mean the whole cell block):
NYU girl: Gimme a J!
Everyone: J!
NYU girl: Gimme an A!
Everyone: A!
NYU girl: Gimme an I!
Everyone: I!
NYU girl: Gimme a L!
Everyone: L!
NYU girl: What does that spell??
Lots of people: Jail!
Guy in the next cell: I can't read!!
I mean, how is that not cool? But jail gets boring. Quick. Especially since Richard Stokes (my AO) let me down and although I was first in, I was the last out of my cell. I got to do some quality pacing though after everyone else left. I felt like a real prisoner. Around 1am though, I got to go and there were people waiting outside with legal help, coffee (the coffee was actually just brought by some people who lived on the block and saw the commotion and were "pro bike"), cookies, bagels, candy, etc. So that was cool. I called Jon and I didn't have enough money for a cab, but I mean I was really far from Columbia and didn't wanna take the subways so late at night (they run so infrequently, I'd be by myself) but one of his friends had a car so he and Justin came to pick me up. I chatted with the people outside and got some idea of what was going to happen to me. I'll explain later. Anyhow, we chatted and so I mean, I just did this ride cause I think it's a cool cause and I thought it would be fun. However, after being arrested, I'm much more dedicated to the cause. I mean, I love cars, but I think it's also a great vision to have people bike more often and have it be safe and easy, especially in New York where it is particularly difficult. So I'm talking to the people outside and they said the same thing, that they just did it for fun until they got arrested and look at them now, they're standing outside a police precinct at 2 in the morning. Clearly this police action is working...
Anyhow, so I got to call my parents at this point. They didn't seem to concerned, I even got a "congratulations" at the end of the call. Jon and Justin came and picked me up and... we were on our merry way home. Oh yeah, so it was like 3am when I got home and I had to a) take a shower cause jail is GROSS and b) get up at 7:30 the next morning to go sailing.
So now my rant, which I will attempt to keep short. The prior night, we did essentially the same thing. I mean, it's a little different, we're making noise and not attempting to get out of the way of traffic with critical mass, but on Jackson's ride (all night ride for history class)we're still putting bikes in front of cars to stop them from moving. And we get a police escort. Some cop decides he's going to be our little guardian. Then we stop for 30 mins at the Fulton Fish Market (SO COOL, p.s.) and as we're walking back to our bikes we notice this long line of police cars and ambulances. Turns out their cop buddy called them down to help us out. Then the next night I'm getting ARRESTED?? WHAT? Not to mention that the arrests didn't start until the Republican National Convention was here last August. The cops used to ride along with them and support them, but then that all changed. The cops know it's BS too. My AO was like yeah, I've ridden in this before, this is so dumb. But I get it, he's doing his job. There was even a "We still ride" bike ride to say that people weren't going to stop riding just because of arrests, but noone got arrested there cause it wasn't technically a "critical mass" ride. Come on people. And I mean yes, I agree, bikes ARE a menace to the roads in Manhattan. Weaving in and out of cars, almost running people over, stuff like that. But that's the point. People shouldn't have to be scared to ride their bikes. There is nowhere for us to safely ride and that's ridiculous. That's how I feel about the matter and you can sure as hell bet that now that I've been made an example of, I'm much more of an activist than I was before.
In the end here's what's happening to me: I'm being charged with Parading without a Permit. My arraignment is set for October 31st. I will be meeting with some lawyers and other helpful people who will go over what will happen to me in court. I would love to fight this and go to trial, but I don't know if I have it in me, so I might just take an ACD (Adjournment in Contemplation of Dismissal) if they offer it to me. It means that if I don't get arrested for 6 months, the DA will dismiss the charges and the record will be sealed. There are already lawyers working on getting the bikes back, and I hear they're good (10 days last time). Other than that, we'll see what happens. I don't regret the experience.
Plus it has become fodder for many jokes, all of this morning at the regatta we were amused by the idea that I should have turned in Jon in order for a lesser charge to myself. It was discussed that I would give him up and tell them he'd be at the sailing van at 116th and bway at 2:30 on tuesday. I had this great mental image of him looking at me like "how could you" and me crying saying "I'm so sorry Jon!!" and cops dragging him away while everyone stared. Which might not be funny to you all, but it's pretty hilarious if you understand the situation. Terence also had a great one.
Blaine: Come on, you gotta stand up to the authorities.
Me: Oh yeah, and what did that get me last time?
Terence: A girlfriend.
Jon's escape was essentially death defying and even more ridiculous. He said he turned around and got out, but at the next bunch of intersections there were cops and he actually got chased around a block twice by this cop car and finally ducked into a group of people waiting to get inside a bar. He said at one point he's coming to this intersection and he goes straight through a line of cabs, into an intersection with green lights for the cars coming at him on either side and makes it through. I mean... really, are the cops making the streets safer?
So that's that, I'll keep you posted, hope you enjoyed the story.