A NYC cyclist says he was assaulted by a pedestrian who knocked him off his bike while he was riding through the East Village this week—but he's even more enraged by the police response to the incident.
Wilfred Chan, 28, is a writer and part-time delivery cyclist, and also volunteers with the Biking Public Project advocacy group. He says he's an experienced cyclist who has been biking in the city for a decade, but has never before experienced anything like what happened to him this week. He said he was riding northbound on 1st Avenue around 2 p.m. on Wednesday when he spotted the man in the gray pedestrian median of the crosswalk (see below), between the bike lane and the car lane.
The intersection of 1st Avenue and 4th Street
"As I was approaching, we made eye contact, and I noticed he was staring pretty intensely at me," Chan said. Chan initially had been cycling in the bike lane, but says he moved into the car lane to avoid pedestrians standing in the bike lane. "I was going 20 MPH so it didn't make sense to be in the bike lane," he added. "I was comfortably keeping pace with traffic, and I had the green light."
As he passed the intersection at 4th Street, Chan says the man stepped out from the crosswalk and kicked him off his bike. He crashed into the orange barrier between the car and bike lanes, flipped over and landed in the bike lane on his head. As a result of the fall, he was bleeding from a gash on his forehead; he injured his elbow; and his bike was mangled, with the front wheel and handle bars twisted. "There are skid marks where my forehead slid on the pavement," he said, which you can see below.
Injuries to Chan's head and elbow
Chan got up to confront the man and asked him why he did that: "He came up and got in my face and said, 'Do what? I didn't do anything.' I said, 'You kicked me off my bike,' and he said, 'Do you want to die over this? I'm going to kill you.'" Chan said the man was not making complete sense, and he suspects he may have been drunk.
By this point, a crowd of bystanders had gathered, several of whom had witnessed what happened to Chan. When the man tried to leave, Chan says some onlookers tried to keep him there, and a fight broke out, with several punches thrown. At this point, it attracted the attention of some nearby NYPD officers from the 9th Precinct.
Chan says he told them what had happened, but was met with immediate skepticism and aggressive questioning. According to Chan, the officers accused him of changing his story because he wasn't sure if the man kicked his bike or put his foot in front of the bike.
"They immediately started gaslighting me," Chan said. "They had an idea already of what happened, and anything I said did not matter. They approached with a demeanor of deep suspicion and skepticism at everything I said, I felt like I was the one being interrogated rather than the person who kicked me off my bike."
Chan told Gothamist that one of the officers "implied that I was the one who had hit the guy's foot. He kept insisting that because I was on a vehicle, it was therefore a vehicular accident, not assault. He compared it to someone's foot hitting a car. I asked him, 'So if you or your kid were riding down the street and some guy kicked you off your bikes, that would be okay?' His response: 'He can do whatever he wants.' I shit you not, those were his exact words." Meanwhile, Chan says there were witnesses standing there saying, "We saw him kick him off the bike, we literally saw it."
Chan said he felt infuriated by the experience. "It was the first time I've experienced being in a collision, and also being the victim of assault, and having the NYPD totally not give a shit. Pretty much because I was riding a bike. They were like, 'Why weren't you in the bike lane, why weren't you wearing a helmet?'"
Chan filed a police report with the 9th Precinct that day. He said that he ended up with about $300 in damages to the bike, and had to pay for a visit to an urgent care center for his injuries.
"To me, the main point is just the utter and willful inadequacy of the police as a system for keeping the city safe for cyclists," he said. "We face terrifying threats every day just trying to get from point A to B and the city has repeatedly shown it does not give a fuck. The cops' attitude to me totally confirmed this—the fact that I was on a bike meant I had no rights. That if I got hurt, even if someone attacked me, it was my fault."
Last week, a cyclist said she was assaulted in Midtown South by two men who tackled her off of her bike and punched her multiple times. That cyclist also had an unsatisfying run-in with NYPD officers when she tried to get them to chase down her assailants.
Chan added, "I'm paranoid now, I don't want to get attacked again. I'm gonna be giving pedestrians a second thought every time I ride by them...At the end of the day, I'm the guy with a big bandage on his head and my bike is ruined, and he goes off possibly hurting other cyclists, and we all have to deal with the NYPD and it fucking sucks."
