Carolyn Backus, the cyclist arrested for fleeing the scene of a Central Park crash that left an electric unicycle rider in critical condition had her charges dropped on Thursday after the office of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg determined the 30-year-old Harlem resident stay on the scene for 45 minutes.
Backus turned herself in on Wednesday after cops circulated her photo along with allegations that she fled the scene without reporting the crash, which sent the 40-year-old male e-unicycle rider to the hospital. But the charge levied by NYPD only applies to motorized vehicles, the DA's office said on Thursday, and Backus was riding a regular old bicycle.
"Carolyn Backus was operating a non-motorized and non-electric bicycle, and the charge only applies to those operating motor vehicles," Bragg spokeswoman M'Niyah Lynn told Streetsblog. "She also remained on scene for about 45 minutes after the crash and waited for paramedics to arrive to treat the injured person."
Cops initially provided few details about how the collision actually occurred. A story in the Daily News somewhat contradictorily said both that the unicyclist "collided with" Backus and that she had "critically hurt" him.
On Thursday morning, however, an NYPD spokesperson walked that back, telling Streetsblog that the cyclist and unicyclist were traveling in the same direction when they collided.
A since-deleted — and still unverified — post on Reddit from the night of the crash described a similar collision in which the electric unicycle rider was responsible, not the cyclist.
“I heard this horrific zooming noise in my ear and I was suddenly thrown backwards off my bike,” the Reddit user, whose account has also since been deleted, wrote on Monday night.
The user also claimed that the man on the one-wheel was going “incredibly fast and not wearing a helmet," and that they'd stayed on the scene at least until the ambulance arrived.
Backus spent at least several hours in custody on the at the Central Park precinct on Wednesday, according to police.
The strange episode comes as the NYPD, under direction from Mayor Adams, has dialed up enforcement against cyclists and e-bike riders over the last two months by giving out criminal court summonses for low-level infractions like running red lights or riding on the sidewalk.
The sprawling summons spree supposedly focuses on e-bikes, but cops have targeted other cyclists as well in increasingly bizarre ways, jumping in front of them and charging them with failure to yield, or pulling a Taser on one rider trying to flee.
Advocates and experts have accused Adams's City Hall of waging a "war on cyclists" with the summonses and a proposed 15 mile-per-hour speed limit on e-bikes. But the mayor has defended dual attack, asserting that the city's street safety program Vision Zero has for "far too long" singled out drivers, despite the fact that motorists account for the vast majority of traffic deaths and injuries.
Central Park Precinct officers have gone overboard on bikes before, when they tried to unilaterally declare a 15 mph speed limit for cyclists in the green space during the Bloomberg administration. But the cops – in a rare move – soon rescinded their tickets and apologized to cyclists.
Additional reporting by Jonah Schwarz and Kevin Duggan
