As you may have already read, the militant bicyclist group, Critical Mass, held a rally in Seattle over the weekend. During the rally, a motorist got on the wrong side of some riders and in return got his vehicle massively damaged, and was knifed, dragged from his vehicle and gang stomped in the street.
Seattle police said they were still looking today for one of a group of Critical Mass bicyclists who attacked and injured a driver during a violent altercation on Capitol Hill Friday evening.
Two other bicyclists have been jailed. But some riders in the event have said the driver was the aggressor.
Just after 7 p.m. Friday, the group of at least 100 bicyclists was moving en masse down East Aloha Street when a man and his girlfriend in a Subaru station wagon tried to pull out of a parking spot, said Seattle police spokesman Mark Jamieson.
For years, Critical Mass has held monthly public bike rides through Seattle to demonstrate for bicyclists’ road rights.
According to Jamieson, as the Critical Mass group moved down the street, blocking traffic, some riders got in the way of the Subaru and prevented it from leaving. Some bikers sat on the car and were banging on it, he said.
“The driver was pretty fearful that he was about to be assaulted by the bicyclists,” Jamieson said.
The man tried to back up, but bumped into a biker. “This enraged the group,” Jamieson said.
Several of the bikers bashed up the Subaru, shattering the windshield and rear window, Jamieson said.
The driver tried to drive away, but hit another bicyclist, Jamieson said. Still, he drove about a block, to the corner of Aloha and 15th Avenue East, before the Critical Mass riders cornered the car again and started spitting on it and banging against it.
One bicyclist punched the driver through his open window, and another used a knife to slash the Subaru’s tires, Jamieson said.
The driver got out of his car, and was hit in the back of the head, opening a large gash.
Eventually police arrived and the crowd dispersed. Witnesses identified two bikers who damaged the Subaru, two men in their early 20s, and they were booked into the King County Jail for investigation of malicious mischief, Jamieson said.
The bicyclists, of course, say that the driver was the aggressor
No one representing Critical Mass could be reached Saturday to comment.
But in e-mails to The Seattle Times and on online forums for Seattle bicyclists, some riders who said they were in the Critical Mass ride characterized the Subaru driver as the aggressor. They said the driver was impatient about waiting for the huge group of riders and yelled that he was late for a reservation.
The Critical Mass rides happen every month and the Seattle Police Department basically hands over the streets to them, letting them block intersections through multiple light changes, switch from the street to the sidewalk, run into pedestrians and bang into vehicles, all with no worry of having to face the consequences of their actions.
Gun bigot and Seattle Mayor, Greg Nickels, loves him some bicycles. And since he has never been inconvenienced or threatened by these creeps, he lets them do whatever they want.
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