New York Times– A police officer who was videotaped knocking a man off his bicycle and onto the ground during a cycling event in Manhattan last summer has been fired, the Police Department said. Paul J. Browne, the Police Department’s chief spokesman, said the officer, Patrick Pogan, 23, was fired about 10 days ago.
Stuart London, a lawyer for Mr. Pogan, disputed the Police Department’s statement, saying that he had resigned.
Mr. Pogan was accused last year of assault and of filing false paperwork related to the arrest of the cyclist and was suspended from the department. The Manhattan district attorney’s office dropped the charges — attempted assault, resisting arrest and disorderly conduct — against the cyclist, Christopher Long. Mr. Browne said on Thursday that the firing stemmed directly from the events involving Mr. Long, which took place on July 25 during a monthly event known as Critical Mass, in which hundreds of cyclists ride through the city to advocate nonpolluting forms of transportation.
The termination was reported by The Associated Press on Thursday night.
Yeah, he resigned. The Brooklyn Bridge is up for sale too. Score one for the citizens.
No more free donuts!
Good riddance to bad rubbish!
Bad cop NO freakin’ donut!
Some cops start out as pigs and some become pigs on the job. When your job is dealing with scum you tend to think everybody is scum. I wouldn’t have the job but I do wish we knew how to pick men who wouldn’t abuse the law. We would have better politicians too.
As happy as I am to see him gone, why did it take so long? A civilian would have been arrested on the spot.
You know, even though this was an absolutely lousy cop, the fact that he pushed over a Critical Mass rider somehow makes me much less angry.
Now if he had murdered the Critical Mass rider, well that probably would have been going too far 😉
I think next time the cops will learn.
1st: step into the path of the oncoming bicyclist.
2nd: say stop (somewhat quietly.
3rd: tase at a distance of about 20′.
4th: someone post video of bicycle rider convulsing while riding.
5th: Youtube traffic increases.
http://planetsave.com/blog/2009/02/20/cop-who-shoved-cyclist-fired-by-nypd-faces-4-year-sentence/
“UPDATE: The New York Times is reporting that Pogan’s lawyer claims that Pogan “resigned” from the force and was not fired, contrary to the statement released by the police department.”
Thug with a badge. Still a thug and probably angrier than ever without the badge.
Good thing this was not in the UK…where you can’t take pictures of the police anymore.
George Orwell was right, just off about about 40 years.
Now just send him after Critical Mass as a private citizen.
Someone needs to get this guy drunk, have him pass out and drop him off at a gay bath house.
#8 – exactly! in the UK now, the bicyclist would be cleared, the cop fired, and the person who shot the video arrested!
Does anyone remember what grounds there were for the charges leveled against the cyclist?
This cop should have been gone the day after the vid came out.
How the heck do some of these people get into the service, sigh. They’re all over the place and I’ve my share with them. One even threatened and put me in his “black list,” coming from a 20+ year cop kid. So much for moving to a nice “white” neighborhood to raise the kids.
These idiotic bikers disrupt traffic and cause other people distress while trying to get around town. The biker had it coming and the cop should have stomped his head in afterwards. Environmentalism is just an excuse for people to act like jackasses.
The biker had it coming and the cop should have stomped his head in afterwards. Environmentalism is just an excuse for people to act like jackasses.
Are you trying to be ironic?
[Of course..after all he is Al Gore – ed.]
Another example of thugs that are paid or elected to be public servants abusing their authority.
This is the clear positive side of empowering people to own defensive weapons – like cameras.
Are you trying to be ironic?
I think the name says it all.
For those unfamiliar with “Critical Mass”, which is basically a swarm of bikers who decided to ride en-mass disobeying all traffic laws a generally making a nusance of themselves. (like hells angels with pedal bikes).
Even my hardcore biking friends can’t stand them and there tactics. Drawing attention to biking is good, but they tend to make drivers angry by blocking of intersections and being a menance.
We only see a small slice of the story. Who knows what this cyclist did before he comes into the frame? How do we know that the policeman was not taking him down because he saw him do something that we didn’t see? We don’t have the whole story.
#20, Jeff,
Then the cop could have stopped him. He didn’t. He just pushed the guy off the bike and started in on him. PLUS, if there was something the cop had seen, then that would have been in the charges. All the charges though stemmed from the assault.
#20. We have already been down that that road. We have the whole story, the cop lied and said he was assaulted. About 500 witnesses and a videotape proves he is a liar. His own people didn’t believe him and they fired him. Don’t be a moran.
Yep. What the cop could have done is; seeing the guy breaking the traffic laws, order him to stop. If he didn’t, THEN bounce him off the pavement.
He was too stupid to figure out this simple sequence.
They should be called Critical Ass.
Sorry but he could have done something off frame and the officer was coming after him.
The office could have been given orders to arrest one of these dumbasses and the cyclist was the lucky one.
A well thrown stick would be more effective.
“Sorry but he could have done something off frame and the officer was coming after him.”
But the cop’s report didn’t say that. Had it, he might have had a case. What he put in the report was that the kid assualted him which was proven to be untrue.
This is a very convoluted issue (not the cop – the video is clear), but biking in NYC; which is dangerous, and death by motorized vehicle, of pedestrian or cyclist, is rarely even ticketed, never mind investigated for possible law breaking. There are white “Ghost Bikes” all over down, marking places where bicyclists have died. Critical Mass’ tactics are controversial, but so is most protesting, by definition. Their disruption of traffic is nothing compared to dozens of other regular ‘events’ in town from UN meetings to 100’s of stupid street fairs.
Far worse than Critical Mass’ disruption is TD Bank’s Five Boro Bike Tour, a Corporate sponsored event that groups 6,ooo bikes together and let them loose all at the same time for a 4 hour tour of the 5 Boroughs, closing streets everywhere for an hour or more at a time. In stark contrast is the much saner Transportation Alternative’s NYC Century Tour which also lets 6,000 bikes loose, but in small groups spread out over a few hours which cause no street closings at all.
#5 – watch the friggin’ video again, with your eyes open this time.
#15 – you wouldn’t last a day as a NYC cop because you’d soil 6 uniforms before lunch out of fear.
NYC has plenty of fine cops who act like real human beings – they just don’t make the news, and I say that have been busted by fascist cops – they are a minority, kinda like level headed responses to blog posts.
I spend 80 minutes a day bike commuting from Manhattan to Queens, but I won’t join Critical Mass rides because I’m chicken shit – afraid of the consequences from rogue cops and morons like a few of the above posters.
I was chased by tanks while protesting war in D.C. 40 years ago, but I’m just a scared old man now trying to dodge infernal combustion engines, some of which attempt to kill me daily while Critical Mass takes the flak for protesting innocent deaths. The car and oil companies have changed the fabric of city life. It’s time the streets become less like the Wild West and safer for humans to trod upon.
thanks for listening,
MIke
sad thing is..had the video never seen the light of day, the cyclist would be the one doing 4yrs..
#6 —resigned??
-so correct me if i’m wrong, but iirc, this means he ‘vested out” -he most like got a severance package and/or a reduced pension package..no?
And if it hadn’t been caught on video, it would have ended as case 999,999,999 (approximately) of a cop getting away with perjury on the stand.
He can apply for a $100K a year job as a police officer in Northern New Jersey. He’ll have an easy job of giving out tickets all day long and harassing anyone and everyone while getting away with it.