I can write about this now that I moved out of Colorado.
During the summer of 2010, I left a restaurant in Fort Collins at 10 PM. There was no one else out at that time, and I rode my bicycle on the sidewalk half a block and then turned down an alley. There were two cops waiting there who wrote me a $15 ticket for riding my bicycle on the sidewalk. I told them I was astonished that the city was paying for two cops to write such pointless tickets late at night – and they didn’t disagree with me. The whole thing was absurd and I forgot about the ticket.
The following winter I was riding my bicycle in downtown Fort Collins and got broadsided by a car with three college kids in it (that was back when kids attended college.) My bike was damaged and I was injured, but the kids refused to give me their insurance information. So I called the police, and a cop showed up about twenty minutes later. He slammed me to the ground, handcuffed me and hauled me off to the county lockup – because I hadn’t paid my $15 ticket from the previous summer, and there was a warrant out for my arrest.
There was a riot going on down at the county jail at that time, so they couldn’t book me in. I spent the time with the cop talking to him and explaining how vile, over the top, and unacceptable his behavior was. I explained to him that he was violently kidnapping an injured man whose crime was riding a bicycle. I also told him that this was going to make a great story for my blog, and that I reach millions of readers. That got him very concerned, so he called up his superior officer, and then took me home. He asked me not to name names.
I never gave any details about this incident before, because I was concerned about retribution from Colorado police. This was just one of a several incidents I had with Fort Collins police, where their aggressive behavior was totally inappropriate.
Since then, I’ve written several blog posts about Fort Collins and Albuquerque police killing unarmed white and black men without any justification. In 1994, Albuquerque police shot and killed a driver on I-25 directly across the center divide from me. Their guns were pointed in our direction as they fired a dozen rounds. Albuquerque police are famous for killing unarmed people.
Militarized, aggressive, trigger happy police is a real problem, and we need a discussion about it. But that discussion is impossible when it is hijacked by phrases like “white supremacy” and “black lives matter.” All lives matter. Progressives never allow an honest discussion on any topic.
Ono of the reasons I ride my bike is to avoid police who are normally focused on car drivers, but that (obviously) doesn’t always work.
