San Fran Cyclist Killed – SFPD Victim Blaming at Memorial

[Terpfan]

@UrbanEngineer 61767 wrote:

http://www.sfbg.com/politics/2013/08/21/memorial-cyclist-marred-sfpd-harassment

A Sergeant of the San Francisco Police Department went to the memorial being held at the corner where the cyclist was hit and parked his squad car in the bike lane to prove a point. He did this in front of friends, family and supporters of the deceased.

In the ensuing argument with the supporters, the officer apparently told the director of the SFBC (San Francisco Bike Coalition) that he “would not leave until’ I ‘understood’ that ‘it was the bicyclist’s fault.”

For anybody to do this is outrageous, for a Sergeant of the local police force to do this when the accident is still under investigation….I don’t even know what to say.

I’m already speechless, so I really didn’t know what to think when I read this:

“After today’s event, SFBC Marc Caswell decided to check in at businesses on the block to see if they had any video cameras aimed at the intersection, and he found an auto body business at the intersection whose workers said they did indeed have revealing footage of the crash that the SFPD hasn’t requested, but which SFBC today delivered to investigators.”

The police department didn’t even look for footage of the accident. They left it up to the bike coalition to do their police work. What the hell….This wasn’t in DC, but it just as easily could have been.

The cop clearly had an attitude problem, but the video part is what really jarred me. They couldn’t be bothered to walk down the block asking business owners a few simple questions and yet he had the time to come lecture cyclists. Something to keep in mind when I go cycling out there in October.

[PotomacCyclist]

Sounds like he could be one of those people with a biased perspective clouded by the bike incident in San Francisco a couple years ago (when the cyclist killed an elderly pedestrian). Some people use that incident to scream about how cyclists are such a threat to public safety and the American way of life. (Some ARL/DC locals do the same thing and bring up the case of the elderly cyclist who lost control of his bike on a steep part of a trail and accidentally killed an elderly pedestrian.)

Of course, these people conveniently ignore the fact that car drivers across the country kill about 90 people on average. Per day.

[consularrider]

@PotomacCyclist 61830 wrote:

(Some ARL/DC locals do the same thing and bring up the case of the elderly cyclist who lost control of his bike on a steep part of a trail and accidentally killed an elderly pedestrian.)

Uh, no, if my memory serves me right from the reporting on the incident, the cyclist (not elderly since he was younger than me ) stated that he called his pass and rang his bell, but that the pedestrian turned around into his path and they collided. Now, that’s not to say he wasn’t going too fast for the conditions and his bike handling skills.

[UrbanEngineer]

I would be outraged if this happened in DC. I don’t have the time to do much of anything with my outrage except maybe stand in a meeting with my arms crossed looking pissed. Luckily for people like me, there are people who are willing and able to stick their neck out for all of us and call out the authorities when necessary. Here is somebody doing just that about this crash.

http://wiggparty.org/2013/08/bicyclists-death-reveals-san-franciscos-real-criminals/

[Author]

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