Green Options

The police officer who was infamously caught on camera tackling a bicyclist in New York City was fired on February 10th, seven months after the original incident.

As we reported here on Planetsave, former officer Patrick Pogan, 23, has been arraigned under charges of falsifying records. We’ve now learned that he has plead not guilty to the charges in Manhattan court and could face up to 4 years in prison if convicted.

We knew SUV’s were an insensitive consumer response to climate change, but after reports today of one such driver striking and another dragging a pedestrian’s body 17 miles along New York City’s highways, the mobile monstrosities will likely face even more adversity.

City Room sums up the episode:

A pedestrian was struck by a sport utility vehicle on a street in Corona, Queens, on Wednesday morning, then immediately struck again by a cargo van that dragged the victim 17 miles through a web of city highways and to Coney Island in Brooklyn, the police said. The pedestrian, apparently a male, was killed.

The victim had not yet been identified, though some paperwork was found in the clothing on his body, which was wedged under the van’s chassis, the police said. The authorities said there did not appear to be any criminality involved.

Last week, a tourist in NYC videotaped a police office body slamming a cyclist during Critical Mass, the monthly event where bicyclists take over city streets.  On Friday, violence also erupted during Critical Mass in Seattle between a driver and bikers, after riders practiced “corking,” in which they block cars while the mass of cyclists pass by.