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Sunday, July 2, 2006

Update: Critical Mass Attack

Posted by on July 2 at 10:57 AM

Both of the Critical Mass bikers who were arrested on Friday afternoon are out of jail now. The biker who was reportedly chased down and attacked by the K.C. deuputies got out on Friday night. Pending charge: possession of alcohol by a minor. This is Jace, the biker who tried to halt traffic as the Critical Mass pack approached an intersection in Belltown. He evidently halted the wrong car: a van occupied by some pretty angry plainclothes K.C. deputies. According to witnesses, the plain clothes officers rushed out and didn’t i.d. themselves before knocking Jace to the ground. Jace is 18 and the officers subsequently found beers in his backpack.

The other Critical Mass biker, Zack, a 30-year-old U.W. grad student who rushed to help (thinking Jace was being attacked by some amped up dudes), is facing a more serious charge: assualting an officer. The officers apparently identified themselves in the middle of the scuffle. Zack was released on $3000 bail on Saturday evening. (A bondsman covered the fine, so Critical Mass only had to pay $300.) He had a five-minute hearing yesterday at K.C. court.

Zack has an attorney now. Witnesses are dropping off signed statements at Wright Brothers bike shop in Fremont in advance of Zack’s meeting this afternoon with the lawyer.

Zack’s girlfriend, Jill, who (whom?) I spoke with this morning, says before they meet the lawyer they’re taking Zack to get checked out by a nurse: “He’s got bruises all over his upper torso from what they did to him.” Jill also reports that after Zack was released last night at around 6:30pm, a crew of Critical Mass bikers, including Jace, headed over to Myrtle Edwards beach to take a break from this whole thing.

Zack’s hearing is this Thursday at the K.C. Courthouse at 2:30.


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Thanks for the update. (Who. Jill is the subject, not the object.)

(Oops, no. She is the object —with whom.)

it's whom, not who

Here's a quote from over at the Seattle Weekly's web site:

"... Locally, absolutely nothing newsworthy has happened so far this weekend."

Lauren, older people don't get out much. It's not that they don't care - it's just that their feet hurt.

I'm the furthest thing from a lawyer, but it seems to me the beer thing would never hold up in court, would it? They would need a reason for tackling him in the first place.

last i checked, being a traffic officer requires proper authorization and/or permission. the fact that this little 18 year old bitch played said role was reason enough to tackle his dumb ass. and i shall laugh at the awesome douchebagness of the entire critical mass movement: given that part of their AIM is to piss people off by blocking traffic, this latest episode should be seen as a triumph! chalk it up, dimwits! (wake up: your methods are only bound to backfire, given the lack of INFORMATIONAL STIMULI you provide. those in the presence of your direct "actions" are never enlightened in any way. and even if y'all did carry a sign or two, their seething anger would prevent them from processing/absorbing any messages.) ...ummm, in sum, y'all are FUCKED. a little beating (and a few scratches) serves ya right. ;-)

Mass Criticism,
You're right, people aren't supposed to impersonate traffic cops. But that doesn't explain why the officer didn't identify himself and then just ticket and/or arrest Jace for that infraction. What he did instead, was charge at the kid without saying he was with the K.C. Sheriff's Office. Then the officer went ahead and abused his power to rough the kid up (the kid thought he was fighting with a random dude)...and the officer still hadn't identified himself. You have every right to be annoyed at Jace for screwing with traffic rules, but aren't you alarmed when law enforcement abuses its power.
Last I checked, being an sworn officer of the law requires schooling and training...and responsiblity. I guarantee you, this type of rogue behavoir is also against the law. Tackling an unarmed suspect before identifying yourself as an officer? What the fuck is that?

Yes, What the fuck is that? Honestly the people who are posting to these threads with anything disparaging towards the bikers should just be blankly ignored.


Should they take a minute to actually consider the true situation (the flouting of civil liberties, and the violent abuse of power) and actually consider the severity of that situation, they'll possibly understand the full scope of the matter and how serious it really is. Otherwise they are merely wasting everybodies time, especially theirs.

I'm sorry, but I just don't see the virtue in clogging up streets in the name of cycling power. Real educational movements *educate*. This just annoys people AND unnecessarily risks people's safety!

You have people driving who need to be places. Some of them are going to get pissed off if a bunch of cyclists arbitrarily choose their street/intersection to screw with. I know that if I'm in a hurry to get somewhere and a bunch of cyclists block my car *intentionally* just for kicks, I'd be very tempted to give them a lesson in physics.

And yes, cops shouldn't do that. But citizens shouldn't act like idiots, either. My rule is that if you get roughed up in the process of doing something stupid, you really should blame yourself first and other second. Rodney King-style beatings are never acceptable, but I think people who tempt the cops into beating the shit out them and then have the nerve to be surprised when it happens are sophmoric fools.

The "education" comes before our car drivers see red. The education is that your car is only blocked "intentionally" for the safety of the group of cyclists, not "just for kicks" and what is learned is that you're only being blocked for a matter of 60 seconds at most sometimes. Take a breath, you'll get there.


Having an open mind and considering their environment for a moment instead of their "pressing destination" would help a lot of these motorists immensely. It would help them differentiate between right and wrong, between large-scale right's violations and their own petty personal deficiencies and sadistic ends—no matter how masked in contradiction they are.

I see the apologists for fascism are out in full force.

Rick, Mass Criticism, Some Guy, et al. Why don't you move to a real police state, like Iran or China, and leave running America to the real patriots?

The meat head testosterone pouring out of the moronic posts by Mass Criticism and Rick, etc. lead me to believe these neanderthals are KC officers themselves. The more we learn about the Sheriff's office the more of an abosolute joke it becomes. It's a frat with badges. Guys who talk tough getting off on a cheap shot beating of an 18 year old? Wow, i'm impressed. Go back to your trailor in Sumner you douchetards.

Aexia, Critical mass is not a radical event for anti-fascists. Critical Mass is fourteen year old news from San Francisco that was interesting at the time. Its current Seattle incarnation looks like embarassing software workers trying desperately to feel radical after work while riding expensive mountain bikes through gentrified Belltown.


If you want to protest a real police state take your little bike ride over to the Microsoft campus and see how "free" you are to express yourself there. My guess is your little bike radicals would last five seconds after punching Microsoft security, but I'd love to be proved wrong.


So instead you whine because some white asshole can't punch an Asian cop in downtown Seattle without getting arrested.


Seattle is one of the most bike friendly cities in the nation, we've fought decades to put in a series of bike paths that stretch from downtown all the way across Snoqualmie pass.

Yeah, Pat, a bike path to Snoqualmie Pass really shows how bike-friendly Seattle is. Ever try riding in the actual CITY?

Hey Doug, how about Microsoft? Ready to organize a Critical Mass ride through the Microsoft and see what happens when we slug one of their security people? Do you think a hundred bike riders could even enter the campus? Talk about police state, the problem isn't downtown Seattle.

I'm a Mac guy.

These last several comments are getting way off topic: No bicyclist did anything to deserve getting thrown to the ground by un-identified undercover sheriffs, who weren't even patrolling the Critical Mass ride ... it was random bad luck that the Sheriffs got corked. Why did they go ballistic?

Zack didn't "punch a cop"... he punched a guy that was attacking his friend, ONLY WHEN that guy as in a losing position (with the entire Mass about to jump on him) did he pull his trump card, his badge.

Corking is a civil infraction... Since when is beating citizens to the ground for civil infractions an appropriate police response? Is that the sort of society you want to live in? Not me. I hope Zack wins this one.

Btw, Microsoft campus is "private property", where as the city streets are "public property"... ponder the difference.

How do you KNOW the deputies didn't identify themselves to the 18 year old Jace? I just had a run-in with an 18 year old neighbor who insulted my intelligence with a lame-ass lie to explain why it wasn't his fault he drove his car over my mailbox.

Zack has a good excuse, on the other hand, arriving after the fact.

The whole C-M "demonstration" however is just lame. A REAL demonstration is responsibly coordinated with the police to get maximum positive press and minimum friction with the plebes. This is just a bunch of jerks interrupting traffic and provoking KC deputies and whining like babies when they get attitude BACK.

You idiots are an embarassment to the REAL bicycle-loving public.

Jesus H Fucking Christ, Grackle, I'm so tired of that Seattle politically correct shit. The kind of demonstrations you describe accomplish nothing. And how do we KNOW what happened with that 18 year old? There were dozens of fucking witnesses who told us, that's how. And I'd like to see how your yuppie ass would react if one of KCSD "big, strong and stupid" boys whupped on you. You and your lawyer would be crying the blues. Wake up dude, or move to Kirkland, if you don't live there already.

To Rick, or Richard, or Ricky, or I'll just your generic name: DICKHEAD. When you write about the "temptation to teach them a lesson about the laws of physics", I think you should keep in mind that you're threatening someone with vehicular assault or homicide. Just threatening that to someone is a felony is this here state of Washington. If your very important journey in your gas sucking pile of shit is that important, you're fucking crazy.

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