Dear Melissa Grace--
I was skimming the 11/14/2005 edition of The NY Daily News when I came across your article "Handcuffs, bars for bicycle rider," the story of Wesley Alexander who went out on his bike to grab grub only to serve jail time for riding the sidewalk sans identification, and [once again] I was angered by the police in our city. As much as I respect the quality of life issues, I feel that this new policy to arrest and/or give summons' to bicyclists for occasionally riding the sidewalks is preposterous and blurs the lines of any common sense law. As you may have guessed, I had my own run in with the police regarding the very same matter.
I keep a Blog where I hype my projects [I'm a professional illustrator & cartoonist] and sometimes write about my life in NYC, specifically, in Brooklyn. I wrote about my personal experience this past summer when undercover police tried to charge me with this ridiculous policy and I was able to honestly and effectively defend my stance sans summons. The original online post is located here:
http://www.livejournal.com/users/man_size/125067.html
Anyhow, I wanted to thank you for blowing the horn and alerting our community about this egregiously subversive law. I'm appalled to learn that this particular law [and who knows what other laws constitute an "infraction"] has affected over 2,700 bicyclists in the past week, alone!
If you desire to pursue this matter any further and if my tale can be of any assistance, I would be more than happy and available to help.
Sincerely,
Dean Haspiel
