NYPD officers slammed a teenager to the ground, pulled his hair and knelt on his head for allegedly riding a Citi Bike "in a reckless manner" in Alphabet City on Thursday, according witnesses and dramatic video of the arrest circulated online and obtained by Streetsblog.
Police cuffed 18-year-old Bronx resident Nathan Martinez at the corner of Avenue B and 14th Street around 11:40 a.m. — slapping him with seven charges, including reckless endangerment, obstructing government administration, "reckless driving," disorderly conduct, and a traffic device violation, an NYPD spokesperson said.
The violent arrest shocked bystanders, who said the NYPD cops completely overreacted to a low-level cycling offense.
"They were just fucking brutalizing the poor kid. Three cops to one person, the way they picked him up was crazy," said Jesus, who works nearby and declined to share his last name.
The heated incident comes as NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch has escalated enforcement against people on bikes and e-bikes this year by increasing low-level offenses to criminal summonses.
Three officers and a sergeant pinned Martinez to the ground outside a burger shop at the corner, as the youth screamed in pain and said that he was not resisting, the footage showed.
"Stop hurting me," Martinez shouts at the three officers in the video. "I’m not even resisting."
In the video, two cops initially grab Martinez's arms, before a third pulls his leg and they fling him to the ground.
A sergeant yanks Martinez's hair, and at one point kneels on his head. Another officer pulls out a stun gun, but doesn't use it as bystanders plead with the cops to deescalate the situation.
"You don’t need to tase him bro, he’s on the fucking ground," said one onlooker. "He’s a child, what is wrong with you people?"
Watch the video, which the bystander gave Streetsblog permission to publish, below. Warning: It is disturbing to watch.
Martinez was riding a grey e-Citi Bike with another person on its handlebars at E. 14th Street and Avenue B just before 11:40 a.m., according to three witnesses and surveillance footage. The person on the front, wearing a red durag, says in the bystander video that Martinez is his little brother.
A resident who saw the arrest said the cyclist wasn't putting anyone in harm's way, and that the police completely overreacted.
"No one was being endangered and certainly not to the extent that it required four grown-ass adults to tackle a teen," said the local, who asked to be identified by his last name, Rozendal. "Trying to twist him into a pretzel, grabbing his hair. ... It was really fucked up."
The NYPD's press office said in an anonymous emailed statement that officers were doing a "traffic safety checkpoint" when they saw Martinez riding with the second person on the handlebars. The police rep claimed the pair went through a "steady red light," and rode "in and out of traffic."
When they tried to stop Martinez, he allegedly "refused," and rode on the sidewalk trying to flee, the press office said. He also declined to give identification and "resisted arrest," the anonymous rep added.
However, nearby security camera footage obtained by Streetsblog showed Martinez and his brother riding with traffic alongside them on 14th Street, rather than going through a red.
When an unmarked grey SUV puts on sirens, they pull over onto the sidewalk at the south eastern corner and look at the cop car. The remainder of the interaction happens out of frame, so it's unclear whether they tried to flee.
NYPD did not respond to a follow-up question about where Martinez supposedly went through a red light.
The aggressive response to a youth cycling infraction comes after months of cops cracking down on cyclists and e-bike riders. Under Tisch's leadership, NYPD began to issue criminal court summonses instead of traffic tickets for low-level cycling offenses, such as running red lights or riding on the sidewalk. Drivers of cars, who account for nearly all traffic injuries and deaths, continue to get civil traffic tickets they can pay online.
Streetsblog has documented Tisch's evidence-free blitz at length — including at least one other case where a cop pulled a Taser on a cyclist in Williamsburg in May.
But cops have escalated interactions with cyclists well before that policy. In 2019, an officer of the same Ninth precinct infamously used potentially deadly force by cutting off a Citi Bike rider with his SUV squad car, because the earbud-wearing cyclist allegedly ran through two red lights and ignored an order to pull over.
Jesus, the nearby worker, said the brutal arrest on Thursday made him recall the racial justice uprisings of 2020 that spread across the globe after officers in Minneapolis murdered George Floyd by kneeling on his neck.
"They just escalated things the moment they copped to the situation," he said. "I thought we learned from something like this.
"Kids of color, people like me, we’re scared we’re going to die from this shit."
