WATCH: Cop Says He Had to Run Over Bicyclist with SUV “For His Own Safety”

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New York, NY — An utterly hilarious, yet disturbing scene unfolded in New York over the weekend illustrating the backwards logic held by many police officers. To keep a man “safe” who was riding a bicycle, an NYPD cop ran him over. The cop even had the audacity to tell the man — whom he nearly killed — that he ran him over “for his own safety.”

On Saturday, the cyclist had rented a CitiBike and was traveling in the bicycle lane, riding with his headphones in when the NYPD cop began following him. Because the cyclist had his headphones in, he could not hear the cop who was yelling at him to stop, for allegedly running a red light.

As the man continued down the bicycle lane, the cop — clearly frustrated with being ignored — took to plowing his SUV into him. Luckily, the man was able to jump off the bicycle just before it was crushed by the cop’s SUV.

As the NY Post reports:

Witnesses posted pictures of the damaged CitiBike alongside the wheels of the 4,000 pound SUV. The nose of the NYPD vehicle is in the bicycle lane. A video posted on Twitter showed a cop calmly explaining to the cyclist that he was riding with his earbuds in and blowing through red lights. The cop said he ordered the cyclist to pull over multiple times, but the bike rider didn’t listen.

“At this point you are being forcefully stopped because, essentially, you are driving recklessly and refusing to stop after multiple lawful orders that you looked and acknowledged so I am going to use whatever means necessary to stop you,” the officer said. “And that’s for your safety.”

Witnesses who were filming the interaction between the cop and his victim erupted in laughter when the cop had the audacity to make such a claim.

“My entire tire came off,” the young man said looking over the damage. “You have a bullet proof door. This is ridiculous.”

Indeed, it is ridiculous — but it is standard procedure when your only tool is escalation of force.

As the Post points out, the officers explained that they had to force the cyclist to stop to prevent him from running more red lights and possibly getting killed.

After the incident, the NYPD took to defending the officer’s actions, but claimed that it was “under investigation.”

The officers saw the rider commit “multiple traffic infractions” and run through two steady red lights “while having both headphones fastened to his ears,” an NYPD spokeswoman said.

“When approached by the officers, the individual jumped off his bike and it became wedged between the police vehicle and a parked vehicle,” the spokeswoman said.

“A police source said that the officers sped up past the cyclist and blocked the rider’s path. The SUV stopped a safe distance from the bicyclist and in no way tried to crash into him, the source said,” according to the Post.

Witnesses, however, described a far different scenario.

“According to the police officer, wearing headphones while bike riding is reckless driving and reason to run the rider off the road for running a red light,” tweeted witness Garvey Rich. “I was across the street in the park when this police ran this bike rider off the road and definitely did not hear any sirens or police loud speaker ordering the biker to stop.”

According to the police officer wearing headphones while bike riding is reckless driving and reason to run the rider off the road for running a red light @NYPDnews #citibike #bikenyc pic.twitter.com/SOWnRDhiUn — Garvey Rich (@Garvey_Rich) July 6, 2019

After the incident, the officer issued multiple citations to the bicyclist.

Sadly, this sort of stop and aggression over improper bicycle riding is not uncommon.

As TFTP previously reported, an officer’s dashcam video showed a disturbing scene unfold as a police officer stops a man on a bicycle. An unarmed, shirtless, shoeless man is mauled for several minutes by a police K-9.

The reason for the stop was the cyclist was riding without a light on his bike.

Also, as we reported, the Sacramento police department released the body and dashboard camera footage from an incident last July in which an officer attempted to cause grave injury to a child by running him over with his cruiser. The child’s crime? He was riding his bicycle without the proper lighting. Now, the taxpayers are going to be held liable for this cop’s actions.

All of this, we are told, is done so “for our safety.”

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