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California | IndymediaCounterpoint to Media Lies about Critical Mass
Here is a counterpoint to the media lies regarding a highly hyped incident at San Francisco Critical Mass. Anyone familiar with the rides sees through these lies, but the public is being brainwashed. Is this merely to sell more car ads, or something even more sinister? The fact that rides are now occurring regularly and growing in Oakland, Walnut Creek, Emeryville and Berkeley, and successfully calling attention to global climate change and war for oil, may be part of the reason for this latest concerted attack on Critical Mass. In the wake of the incident of motorist violence at San Francisco Critical
Mass on Friday, March 30, 2007, this video is presented as a counterpoint to the gross misrepresentation in much of the Bay Area media. The hype began with a gossip column in the SF Chronicle. The side of the story which hasn't been told: a mother in a minivan reportedly endangered her children and the demonstrators by crashing through the Critical Mass in San Francisco. She struck one cyclist, who flew 4-5 feet, and crushed the cyclist's bicycle underwheel. She then fled the scene (hit and run). Cyclists chased and detained the cyclist. One cyclist reportedly erred in throwing a bicycle at the rear of the van, which had tinted windows, and broke the window. None of the children inside, who were not visible, were injured. There were no further acts of agression in response to the attack. The police failed to arrest the driver, wihch is all too common in the everyday violence against bicyclists, and particularly true at Critical Mass. The attached video shows a parallel event, in which a mother terrifies her child, jumps a curb to attack, strikes a cyclist (a cancer victim, incidentally, and partially disabled), traps his foot underwheel, then pushes through and crushes the bicycle. A police lieutenant failed to respond immediately after (audio problems need to be corrected, but you can see the cyclists are asking for justice). The full video shows that there was a police helicopter and police stationed at intersections along the way. Their failure to protect the cyclists speaks to the endemic and institutionalized discrimination against bicycling which is a foundation for the need for critical mass demonstrations. |
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