Mass arrests 'Critical Mass' cycle ride during Olympics opening

[Davidc]

Normally I think CM is just a waste of time but harmless. However, heading for Stratford when the police and others are so twitchy about games security was in my opinion just stupid, unnecessarily stupid, and simply invited this OTT response.

 

[ianrauk]

Normally I think CM is just a waste of time but harmless. However, heading for Stratford when the police and others are so twitchy about games security was in my opinion just stupid, unnecessarily stupid, and simply invited this OTT response.

Spot on. Totally antagonistic behaviour.

 

[Cheddar George]

I think they were making a point about public space

Don't get me wrong. CMers aren't intellectuals. They simply have a visceral objection to the way space, particularly public space, is ordered. Riding en masse around the centre of London turns the street from something on the way from A to B in to theatre. People, tourists, commuters, revellers stop and applaud (the same thing happens to the night rides I organise).

The Olympics is about the privatisation of public space, whether it be a bit of the footpath in Park Lane, the Zil lanes or the Olympic Park itself. Put simply you and I can go to less places in London than in past times. That shouldn't go unremarked.

CM isn't my thing, but they make a valid point and maintain a constant profile. I don't understand their problem with the Olympics, are any of the restrictions going to be permanent ? If everybody who has been inconvenienced by the Olympics turned up to make a point it would have dwarfed the opening ceremony.

 

[ComedyPilot]

Have you got a link to that video?

I recognise a few of the faces in the shorter video - they are the 'usual suspects' who have made CM less attractive to me...

View: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wfftgb4KOlE&feature=youtu.be


It shows the officer trying to deal with the woman, but one by one, galant well-intentioned knights in shining armour come to her assistance. Obviously we don't know why he was trying to arrest her, but it is clear the 'disabled' bloke pulls a move Brian Jacks would be proud of.

 

[Psycolist]

Self indulgent tossers with a loony anarchist fringe.

along those lines , maybe not quite as much venom but it definately smacks of a naughty childs behaiviour

 

[Boris Bajic]

I posted the below on the parallel thread, but it was closed as there were two on the same topic. My thoughts as follows:

Critical Mass remind me a little of the die-hard Cornish Nationalists one reads about from time to time.

They take themselves immensely seriously, but nobody else does.

Whilst the outward appearance they give is one of being jolly cross about all the kettling, heavy-handed policing and arrests, I have a sneaky feeling that many of them are enjoying the frisson of actually being noticed by the authorities.

Even the pathalogically silly have a need to feel cross about things.

I can't tell you how cross that makes me.....

 

[Norm]

Why pepper spray a chap who can't get out of a chair?

I wonder if the more complete video will answer your question. Although it does pose some other questions, such as who was it who first claimed that the chap couldn't get out of his chair, who was it that considered the police to be the aggressors, who will continue to make the kettling claims and who can possibly continue with the fabrication that "the mood of Critical Mass will be to peacefully assert the right of cyclists to travel safely", given that the policeman was thrown across the bonnet of a car by someone who didn't seem to be too bothered about the rights of cyclists.

 

[Mr Haematocrit]

After watching the full version, I think it must have been very worrying for the officer to have a number of people grabbing him, and the disabled bloke most certainly played his part in prohibiting the officer from doing his job and arresting the woman.
It's apparent to me from watching the full video that these people were neither law abiding citizens or looking for a peaceful protest.
I equally suspect this is why many people do not post the full video as they are looking to provoke and cause reaction, with heightened emotional responces rather than have a rational discussion or debate.

 

[Theseus]

View: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wfftgb4KOlE&feature=youtu.be


It shows the officer trying to deal with the woman, but one by one, galant well-intentioned knights in shining armour come to her assistance. Obviously we don't know why he was trying to arrest her, but it is clear the 'disabled' bloke pulls a move Brian Jacks would be proud of.

It is difficult to be sure, but that looks more like a motorbike than a wheelchair.

 

[stowie]

The policeman appeared floored by the chap who apparently was chair bound and the guy in the green top. If this policeman had had backup both these protesters would have been arrested for assault and rightly so. The policeman "lost it" in the sense that the crowd was overwhelming him. But, frankly, if you stand up and manhandle a copper onto the bonnet of a car, I don't think that sitting down and claiming you are disabled when the pepper spray and baton comes out cuts any ice.

 

[Norm]

It is difficult to be sure, but that looks more like a motorbike than a wheelchair.

Indeed, and the HOG patch suggests the same.

 

[Arch]

It is difficult to be sure, but that looks more like a motorbike than a wheelchair.

It might be some sort of delta trike, and a lot of people assume a trike = disability (and indeed some people use trikes due to balance problems, as opposed to any loss of leg function).

 

[Mr Haematocrit]

out of curiousity, who decided that the video needed editing and that the first section where the PC gets thrown the car was not relevant to the events which took place?

The more I look at it, the more im convinced the edited video is setup to paint a picture that specific groups want to present. This picture has no foundation in peaceful protest or truth. It has been painted with hatred, lies and the picture painted was one intended to deceive.
The whole thing has a nasty taste for that fact alone.

 

[Red Light]

Here's the sequence of the interaction between the "man in the wheelchair" with the grey beard and headband, and the policeman. Says all that needs to be said.

 

[MacB]

public space for private profit, socialisation of losses and privatisation of profits and the co-opting of civilian defence forces to these ends all go hand in hand.

Was the guy in the chair being an arse, did he get a bit physical with the copper? I neither know nor care because the option to walk away was there. By refusing that option and resorting to baton and spray the policeman immediately loses my support. Actually he ceases to be a policeman and becomes a bully boy thug.