Norfolk Cop: "Don't give me SH*T!!!"

“Don't come over here and give me SHIT for riding on the sidewalk!”

So said Officer Rogers of the Norfolk Police Department, standing astride his bicycle on the sidewalk of Plume Street in downtown Norfolk during the opening hours of Harborfest 2010.

I was riding my bike home on Plume Street (with traffic, in the street), a little after six o'clock, when I saw Officer Rogers and Officer “Blank” riding the opposite direction on the sidewalk (the nametag was missing from the velcro strip on Officer Blank's uniform).

I looked behind me and made a u-turn on my bike as Officers Rogers & Blank stopped on their bikes, too. I pulled up in a driveway to a construction site, and asked Officer Blank as he started to ride around me,

“What in the performance of your duties requires you to ride on the sidewalk right now?”

“Huh?”

“Why do you feel the need to ride on the sidewalk right now?”

“Because I can ride on the sidewalk.”

“I understand that you're legally allowed to ride on the sidewalk, just as you have the legal authority to drive through a red light when you are in your cruiser. But you don't drive through red lights unless required. So what part of your duties right now requires you to ride on the sidewalk?”

“Well, I'm patrolling.”

At this point, Officer Rogers rode over on his bike, looking rather agitated. Officer Blank looked like he had been hitting the donuts: a chunky guy, over 35% body fat. Officer Rogers was shorter and leaner: the bantam weight boxer to Officer Blank's linebacker. Officer Rogers joined in the conversation,

“Let me ask you something: what do you do for a living?”

“I'm a photographer,” I replied,

“Do I come around and give you SHIT while you're taking pictures of flowers? NO! So don't come come over here and give me SHIT for riding my bike on the sidewalk!”

“I'm not asking you not to ride on the sidewalk, I'm asking you what in the performance of your duties compels you to ride on the sidewalk. See, you're setting a bad example: there are thousands of people downtown for Harborfest. You're riding on the sidewalk. People see cops riding on the sidewalk, and they think it's OK. In fact it's illegal in Norfolk, and it's four hundred percent more dangerous than riding in the street, with traffic!”

At this point, Officer Blank chimed in, “Well we're cops because we like danger: maybe that's why we ride on the sidewalk.”

Officer Rogers went back on the attack, “Have you ever taken a PHOTOGRAPH of a dead police officer?”

“Actually, yes, I have,” I replied, stretching the truth only slightly: from firsthand, forensic photography I know the punchline to the joke, “What do you call a guy floating in the ocean with no arms and no legs?” Answer: “A naval aviator.” (I spent some time photographing in the morgue of the Portsmouth Navy Hospital, and Navy pilots are the cops of the ocean skies.)

“Don't you have anything better to do?” Officer Rogers continued,

“I think it's quite important for our police to model good, law-abiding behavior: you don't run red lights just because you can. You run them when you need to. You shouldn't ride on the sidewalk, just because you can.”

“And you rode your bike over here ON THE SIDEWALK to tell us that?”

“Actually, officer, I'm not on the sidewalk,” I observed, looking down at the curb cut and parking lot driveway where I was standing, astride my bike.”

Officer Rogers was furiously quiet for a few moments as he realized that I was, indeed, in compliance with the Norfolk city code. Then he gathered himself up and presented the best justification yet,

“We are patrolling the downtown area and keeping citizens safe. For that reason, we are riding on the sidewalk.”

I think Officer Rogers knew that it was a lame excuse, but strong enough to stand up, should his Sergeant inquire. And I look forward to hearing from the Norfolk Police Department as to their guidelines for officers exercising their legal permission under Section 23-398 of the Norfolk Municipal Code to operate bicycle on the sidewalk:

“Because I can,” is not a sufficient reason.

Norfolk Bike Cops- Get Off the Sidewalk!

I was on my way to join the Wednesday night road ride out of the Norfolk Conte's when I saw a squad of bike cops riding north on Granby Street, single file, along the sidewalk. They stopped at the 7-Eleven at 38th & Granby for refreshments, and I took the opportunity to engage them.

While adult cyclists in Norfolk are legally obliged to ride in the road, Norfolk bike cops can ride on the sidewalk whenever they darn well feel like it.

Why? Well, I got three different answers to that question from a squad of Norfolk's "finest." I'll leave you to judge the lameness:

1. "The department won't buy us rear-view mirrors."
2. "The sidewalk is safer because we're targets."
3. "The Supreme Court says we can."

So let's take a look at each of these excuses for failing to follow the rules of the road:

1. "The department won't buy us rear-view mirrors."
Rear-view mirrors are not necessary to ride safely on the road. A cyclist is far more likely to be injured by what's in front of them than by what's behind them. And it's hard to lend much credence to budgetary woes when the officers in question are riding $2,000 bikes, and their utility belts are sagging under the weight of radios, handcuffs, tasers, batons, pistols and pepper spray. The Norfolk Police Department can't pony up $5 for a helmet or handlebar-mounted rear-view mirror? Please...

2. "The sidewalk is safer because we're targets."
One of the younger members of the bike squad asserted that it was safer for bike cops to ride on the sidewalk because they're targets in the road. But if some enraged driver wanted to run over a bike cop, I doubt that a six inch curb would be much of an impediment. I'll hazard a guess that the injury rate for bike cops is statistically proportional to that for civilian cyclists: in North America a cyclist is more likely to be injured and killed when they're riding on the sidewalk.

3. "The Supreme Court says we can."
Well, I can't argue much with this one. The Norfolk City Code allows city employees to ride on sidewalks. The Supreme Court has upheld that police officers are legally allowed to use lethal force and ignore traffic laws in the performance of their duties. I hardly think, though, that riding to 7-Eleven is a part of their official duties.

To argue by analogy, let's consider another police officer heading north on Granby Street to 7-Eleven. It's late afternoon, and traffic is heavy, so the officer decides to drive their squad car/motorcycle/paddy wagon on the sidewalk. In the abscence of any emergency, I believe that most law-abiding citizens would consider such behavior to be an abuse of power. Just because you can doesn't mean you should.

What our public servants should do is teach by example: Green light means "go," and red light means "stop." Signal before changing lanes or turning. Obey the speed limit. And if the protection of the public safety warrants, drive the wrong way down a one-way street, through a red light, or, on the sidewalk.

There is a commonly held misperception that cyclists belong on the sidewalk. More than once I've been told on the streets of Norfolk, "Get on the sidewalk!" When bike cops abuse their authority to ride on the sidewalks, they endanger themselves in the short term and their fellow citizens in the long term: In the short term, it is more dangerous to ride a bike on a sidewalk for anybody, bike cops included. In the long term sidewalk-riding bike cops endanger their fellow citizen cyclists by enforcing the public misperception that the sidewalks are where bikes belong.

Bike cops neither protect nor serve the public when they ride on the sidewalk. In the abscence of a compelling duty, they need to get down off the sidewalk and into the gutter with civilian cyclists.