NYPD’s Bedford Avenue Circular Saw Massacre Caught on Tape

12:05 PM EDT on October 5, 2009

The NYPD's 94th Precinct in Williamsburg, Brooklyn is working hard to build on its reputation for being New York City's most infamous bike thieves. Too much demand for bike parking in the neighborhood? "I know what to do," says the 94's commanding officer Dennis M. Fulton. "Bust out the circular saw!"

This time Greenpoint resident Ben Running caught the whole thing on video tape. Running says the confiscated bicycles seemed to be in use:

They didn’t look like beat up bikes that had locked up there forever —they looked like they were being used,” said Ben Running, a Greenpointresident and cyclist who filmed police removing the bikes from a streetsign near the corner of North Eighth Street. “Bikes shouldn’t beremoved without some kind of notice.

But an officer from the 94th told the New York Post that the bikes had been there for at least three months. Officer Cole Pletka said, “From a distance, they might have looked like they were rideable, but the bikes were on top of each and both wheels were bent."

As Gothamist notes, The local community board around Williamsburg has long advocated for a sane and sensible “tag
and clip” policy, where police would tag apparently inactive bicycles with a flyer warning that they are in danger of being taken by cops.
Running said, “Bikes shouldn’t be removed without some kind of notice.”

Aaron Naparstek

AARON NAPARSTEK is the founder and former editor-in-chief of Streetsblog. Based in Brooklyn, New York, Naparsteks journalism, advocacy and community organizing work has been instrumental in growing the bicycle network, removing motor vehicles from parks, and developing new public plazas, car-free streets and life-saving traffic-calming measures across all five boroughs. Naparstek is the author of "Honku: The Zen Antidote for Road Rage" (Villard, 2003), a book of humorous haiku poetry inspired by the endless motorist sociopathy observed from his apartment window. Prior to launching Streetsblog, Naparstek worked as an interactive media producer, pioneering some of the Web's first music web sites, online communities, live webcasts and social networking services. Naparstek is currently in Cambridge with his wife and two young sons where he is enjoying a Loeb Fellowship at Harvard University's Graduate School of Design. He has a master's degree from Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism and a bachelor's degree from Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri. Naparstek is a co-founder of the Park Slope Neighbors community group and the Grand Army Plaza Coalition. You can find more of his work here: http://www.naparstek.com.

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