You are hereAPD cop hits cyclist, putting him in hospital
APD cop hits cyclist, putting him in hospital
According to The Statesman's Police Blotter (and K-EYE), yesterday evening an Austin Police Officer struck a cyclist at the intersection of North Lamar and Rundberg, putting the cyclist in serious but stable condition at Brackenridge:
http://www.statesman.com/blogs/content/shared-gen/blogs/austin/blotter/e...
http://www.keyetv.com/content/news/topnews/story.aspx?content_id=8f30423...
Now according to the officer (who's name hasn't been released) the cyclist was running a red light and the cop car had the green, but I can't help but have my doubts. I've seen plenty of cop cars run red lights with nothing more than a blip of their lights (not slowing down) and remember, cops lie ALL THE TIME. It seems to be so ingrained in their behavior as to be considered a part of the job. I've been a victim of the gang in blue's deceptive "tactics" and I'm sure many of y'all have too. Irregardless, remember to always be aware of your surroundings, since oftentimes even our public servants seem to be out to get us. Their cars are a lot bigger, they carry guns, and they have those snappy suits and badges that give them carte blanche in court, so watch out or maybe they'll "serve" you too.
Meanwhile, anyone else have any info on this collision? Specifically names or eye witnesses? I might be a little more lenient on my thoughts regarding the cop if a real person would step forward and give their account.
KEYE has a video report up:
http://www.keyetv.com/mostpopular/story.aspx?content_id=8f304233-7bc6-44...
Ack, my comment got eaten! Hope it was yummy.
Until someone talks to the biker or more info comes out, we don't really know what happened, but there's probably enough blame to spread around on both parties. I see cops run red lights. I see bikes run red lights. And sometimes shit happens.
The article says that the cop was going south on Lamar, the bike was heading west on Rundberg, and the bike hit the left front side of the car. That's the driver's side. Something like this:
C
a
r
|
V
*...<-Bike
The latest article from News 8 Austin says that the bike didn't have any lights, and was wearing dark clothing.
The KEYE article says that it was witnessed by employees at the Sonic. That's on the SE corner of that intersection. It also said he suffered head and pelvis injuries. Makes me wonder if he was wearing a helmet.
Sorry about that, we had to revert to an older version of the DB and I lost some of the most recent entries and their associated comments. I'll definitely be following the story as we find out more. I'm sure the cyclist isn't blameless as the whole dark clothes, no flashies/reflector, at night thing isn't the best of ideas, but I've dealt enough with lying cops to not hold a lot of faith in their version of what happened. Hopefully witnesses will come forward. Moreso, hopefully the biker will recover, I hate to see anyone get hurt from something like this.
No worries. Like I said, sometimes shit happens.
To be fair, cyclists run red lights all the time too.
(But usually they do at least look to make sure there aren't any cars about -- it seems a lot easier to not see a bicycle (especially without lights, which is stupid) than a cop car.)
So we don't know what happened. It may be just like the police said. Or it may ... not. And we may never know.
Side note ... cops have cameras mounted on their cars, and you can mount one on your bike too. Here's a cheap and easy way to do that --
http://photojojo.com/content/diy/attach-a-camera-to-your-bike/
of course, if I'm just riding around at night, I'd probably not expect anything to happen, and might not turn it on since it wouldn't pick up much at night anyways. But still, thought it was neat ...