some pics from last night's critical mass

doug's already posted a fine report here

the arrest really was just an uppity cop throwing his weight around. he'd asked the cyclist to move, and then hardly giving him a chance went on to say "right, you're under arrest".

he and a female colleague had to wait several minutes for back-up, while various cyclists jeered them and pointed out they should be stopping real crimes and shouting "shame on you" etc.

eventually a van came, and cyclists were very unco-operative about getting out of its way as it took the arrestee off. more city police had to help clear the road for the van. all in all the operation took around ten minutes and ended up involving at least eight city police.

all because of one cop's over-blown sense of pride. ridiculous. the cyclist was supposedly arrested for causing an obstruction and for obstructing a police officer. the obstruction charge was rubbish as he was part of a huge traffic jam and had nowhere really to go. the obstructing a police officer was just nonsense.

later, the cab that deliberately rammed a bike surprisingly came off worse. that's the strongest bike wheel i've ever seen. and a rear-ender like that leaves the cabbie with no defence insurance-wise. he can't exactly claim the bike rammed him and caused all that damage. hope he loses his licence.

parliament square was pretty much the last stop for the mass last night, where they showed support for the democracy village by blockading the square for several minutes and continuing to hold several lanes for another ten.

critical mass meets on the south bank under waterloo bridge at 6.30pm on the last friday of every month.