Big surprise — ex-LAPD cop killer doesn’t like bikes, either; big silence from Santa Monica’s Big Blue Bus

You knew there had to be a bicycling connection in there somewhere.

Here in L.A., local news reports have been commandeered by the manhunt for Chris Dorner, the former LAPD officer who allegedly murdered three people in a bizarre attempt at getting justice for his firing.

Note to anyone considering a similarly unhinged rampage in an attempt to set the record straight: It won’t work. All it will do is convince the world that you’re crazy, and that they were right all along.

In an attempt to justify his actions, Dorner posted a rambling online manifesto (trust me, you’re better off with the Cliff Notes version) in which he professes his support for Tim Tebow, Charlie Sheen, Dave Brubeck’s Take Five and Michelle Obama’s bangs. Not to mention his love and admiration for a long list of female performers, and his thanks to unnamed individuals for some great and not-so-great sex over the years.

Oh, and a list of those deserving of death at his hands.

But surely, anything that long and convoluted has to mention bikes somewhere, right?

Dorner does not disappoint.

Near the end of his meandering philippic, he vents his spleen on those of us who take to two wheels.

Cyclist, I have no problem sharing the road with you. But, at least go the fucking speed limit posted or get off the road!!! That is a feasible request. Livestrong you fraudulent assholes.

How surprising that a former cop wouldn’t understand our right to the road. Then again, he was fired before the LAPD released its groundbreaking bike training video for its officers.

I guess we should just be glad that we didn’t make it onto his high-value target list.

But he’s not completely irrational. He does call for a ban on assault weapons and high-capacity ammo clips.

You know, to keep them out of the hands of people like him.

And Streetsblog notes that coverage of the story shows the need for a separated bike lane in front of LAPD headquarters.

Thanks to Erik Griswold and Jim Lyle for the heads-up.

………

Still no follow-up from Santa Monica’s Big Blue Bus about the complaint I filed this week, following Monday’s close call in which I found myself sharing a bike lane with a speeding bus.

Despite leaving my phone number when I filed the complaint, as well as leaving it on the voice mail of their head of security, I’ve heard absolutely nothing from them. Which is even more disturbing since the woman I spoke with refused to view my video of the incident or take down a link to the video, saying they have their own cameras on every bus.

Maybe so.

But they don’t have anything that shows it from the perspective of a bike rider who came less than two feet from getting run down by a driver who should never have come close to the bike lane. Let alone passed me with two wheels inside it.

Kind of makes me wonder if they just don’t give a damn.

But we’ll see.

………

Bike Portland say new LACBC board member April Economides is bringing bicycling to business. L.A. wants your help to eradicate wheel-grabbing storm drain covers. New parklets open up on Spring Street next to the semi-green bike lanes; one features stationary bikes so you can pedal in place while other people ride by. They’re not the first ones in L.A., though. CD 11 candidate Mike Bonin promises to keep building out the district’s bicycle network if he’s elected. Flying Pigeon hosts its monthly Spoke(n) Art Ride this weekend. Training tips for this year’s St. Patrick’s Day Wolfpack Hustle Marathon Crash Race; nothing about chugging green beer at the finish line, though. USC’s first feeble stab at accommodating — or perhaps channeling — bikes gets mixed reviews; the school’s Neon Tommy looks at the proposed My Figueroa project. Learn how to track ride with an intensive six-week course at the Encino Velodrome. Turns out there’s a city election in WeHo next month, as well; at least one candidate charges they’ve neglected East West Hollywood. A badly decomposed body is found next to the San Gabriel River bike path; why are bike paths such popular places to dump bodies? CLR Effect interviews an Irish rider with the local Full Circle Cycling team. Boyonabike reviews City Cycling.

The 15th annual Tour de Palm Springs rolls this Saturday. A cyclist is injured in a collision on the Coast Highway in Corona del Mar, but apparently not badly. San Diego commits to making the city safer for cyclists; considering the high speed virtual highways that pass for surface streets, they have a long way to go. San Luis Obispo students conduct a mock trial in a fake hit-and-run case that left an imaginary cyclist injured. Yes, it’s illegal to run over a cyclist, no matter how much he or she may annoy you; you’d probably get away with it, though. San Francisco cab drivers are learning to make room for bikes. A Tracy cyclist is killed by a hit-and-run driver as he tried to get back on his bike after a fall.

Forget road diets, the goal is now right-sizing streets to create great public spaces. Oh how the mighty have fallen, as Lance is now the most hated athlete in America. Can Seattle have a successful bike share program with a mandatory helmet law? Denver offers cyclists a separated bike lane complete with bike boxes, green mixing zones and a special signal giving riders a head start on vehicular traffic at a dangerous intersection, yet local bike advocates say it’s not good enough; someone should tell them not to let the perfect be the enemy of the pretty damn effing fantastic. Even tiny Hays Kansas — population 21,000 — is getting a bike-friendly makeover. Des Moines plans to make the bikeable city even better. Bikes may use full lane, except in New York. A Louisiana driver kills a 14-year old cyclist while drunk, and a grand jury concludes it’s no big deal. Maryland cyclists oppose a proposed mandatory helmet law.

Uruguay tries to cut violence by trading bikes for guns. Evidently, life is cheap in London, as a driver gets a six month suspended sentence for carelessly killing a cyclist, but at least he won’t be able to legally drive for the next three years; on the other hand, his victim won’t ever drive again. A rising young British cyclist was killed after losing control and crashing into a stone pillar at 40 mph at a dangerous corner, which should have been fixed long before someone got killed. A UK truck driver attempted to delete the texts he was sending when he killed a 13-year old bike rider. Cycling deaths and serious injuries are headed the wrong way in the UK. A lawyer says a new bike superhighway could make things more dangerous for British riders. Current Tour de France champ Bradley Wiggins is voted Britain’s funniest celebrity. It’s hard to obey the cycling restrictions if you can figure out what the hell they are. Can Scotland copy the Netherlands success in cycling; then again, can anyone? Speaking of the Netherlands, the risk of death for Dutch riders over 80 is 80 times higher than for younger riders. A Kenyan pick-up driver disappears after a bike is crashed beyond repair in a collision; unfortunately, so was the person riding it. A new documentary charts the rise of the Rwanda national cycling team. A new national map of dooring spots is making waves in New Zealand. A Kiwi bike racer rides away from a terrible drug and gang-related past, including prison, molestation and the murder of his father.

Finally, Gotham insults don’t travel well when a young rider moves to the Midwest. And if your winter beard gets caught in your bicycle’s components, you’ve let it go too far.

6 comments

  1. I read through it from plain morbid fascination and was surprised to see he called out cyclists.

    Agreed that murderous rampage probably isn’t the best strategy for clearing his name. Aside from that, he sounds like somebody I might have enjoyed hanging out with.

    • bikinginla says:

      Yeah, I might argue with him on some points, but he seems like a decent guy, that whole murder/death threat thing aside. And I suspect he did get hosed on the firing; just wish he’d taken a different tack to publicize his complaints.

      This really drives home the need for better mental healthcare in the country. Dorner himself points to his depression since his firing, and I question how much those two concussions he mentions may have impacted him, as well.

  2. Erik Griswold says:

    At least he, I think, took a dig at Lance Armstrong too in that last sentence.

  3. […] via Big surprise — ex-LAPD cop killer doesn’t like bikes, either; big silence from Santa Monica’s …. […]

  4. Karl says:

    I just checked to see if you’ve mentioned the kickstarter from london that projects a green icon on the road ahead and since you have not and mention several london aspects in this recent entry am chiming in here- hope you don’t mind too much as I’m not merely cheering. Emily writes she’s using a merely double digit if high efficiency led and also that it was demo’d at under a watt in her video etc. She also has a patent. In LA some young dudes use lazers to demarc from teh rear break as I’ve mentioned but this active project with generous time to fulfill of many months still has real brains not just beauty behind it. It should be far more bright or accepted as mainly a laser with the law limiting that part of it’s brightness and she mentions safety aspects that are likely in good faith on her part in not allowing the laser to operate when off the handlebars etc. I got busted one night hours after fooling with a laser coincidentally I think on a false citation regular light related. It did chill working with the laser more in retrospect I bet. I used to use mag light rubber banded so as to oscillate taking advantage of ssl’s invulnerability to retrograde motion regardless of how abrupt- in fact throwingi them up in the air in a dark park as high as you can is quite fun and can’t damage them either when they hit all but asphault or concrete if even that.

    Emily mentions how it’s not very visibile in the daytime- it coudl be though. Even if it requires a gyroscope going beyond brightness- well beyond what she offers- to road writing and essentially all but vibrating as we see in cars to alert car users- to putting real animations not just writing or icons on the road will save many lives and make misses far more rarer. The laser can detect and respond to intrusions in our path… And have you ridden on any path with bike following lights as at Davis? That is a bit spooky but enables off griding any dark path as it cuts power consumption obviously incredibly in paths not continously dense with users.

    I had hoped to get through all the active at least projects with keyword light- but only saw too many it seems desperate to donate supporters without confirming I had seen them all. Dont’ spent hundreds on a merely bright light- demand real innovation and performance at least if you drop that much. The latest LED’s are ‘field’ removable in ‘jacks’ that don’t require soldering. I’ve supported ac powered wiring on bikes even though I’ve joined the consensus that almost wants to ban ac power for the one percent of electricity used for computation- literally that now about of all electrons sold! Being cost efficient to allow adoption NOW saves lives over worrying about watts. I’d love to see lots of people plugging into there portable E-juice boxes even with usb only but ideally ac jacks into even dry ice dependent for cooling seul 17 watt pluginreadytobebrilliantasonepresentlyistoldwecan’tafford assemblies as you can buy those for under twenty bucks and have full dimmability down from nearly two thousand lumens. (dry ice to absorb even ten watts not shined we won’t notice the cost or weight of every day even hours a day) Emily could bring far more of her physics past forward to top her noted accomplishment so far by miniaturizing laser projection and even spraying water to write on the mist from is within reason. So much more should be done with technology to give notice of our presence in sound as well- air horns are after all quintessentially obsolete not just underutilized given there awesome needed if insufficiently welcome shriek. We may know or at least pathetically bray about how much more even we are valuable in our lives as are dogs- but when a dog dies for lack of a heat alarm in some cops backseat cost is almost no object and cars without auto-opening windows and sirens literally if detected in the future as thermally dangerous become the norm within that best friends fatalities awareness geographically as the least that can be done (and in mere weeks if that)- why not for us our own after all masters as well? A bike light that does not put an icon on the pavement well ahead of our physical being is a defective implementation and those who peddle such lights especially expensive ones should lose there shirts maybe even if they try to get waivers from there customers. When we buy almost anything we expect a bar code- but expensive cars are still not equipped with scanners to warn drivers of our presence- because we still demand -even to save many of our lives for sure- almost nothing seriously. In fact the same cop car that scans every plate has a blind spot for us and probably has killed more then one of us already for lacking such ‘one way’ scanning. (no sonar/radar etc. is necessary- we’ve cut a affordably machine recognizable image even without formal ‘coding’ marks for years now- and only because we are not dangerous to car users do they dare still engineer them anew with obliviousness to what else is on the road especially us)

    Too many of us spend far too much without getting much additional value. For far less then what it costs to drive we can be what a dozen times as safe as those of us who spend much more then that biking on mere gimmicks and vanity at best.

    Earn the investment you make by buying with awareness of what should be offered and it shall be. I don’t know of a bike light that’s worth $200 bucks right now- considering what Emily offers and what can be had from MOUSER in it’s complete but for battery ‘light’ engine for even FIFTEEN. For $200 in fact a laser ‘should’ warn us of anything it ‘see’s that might puncture etc. us. Nothing offered in cars in electronics should be denied us- most of us spend more on bikes who bike seriously then far more have to spend upfront and thereafter to be street legal in gasoline grossosities. There are too many bike dealers- a doubly class action against even most of them for taking our money ever more gougingly then ‘adult’ mobility dealers do would be evolutionary. I say people who bike care about safety as well but nothing in the stores confirms that. This is our y2k- barely a transistor on board our carriages still, when it’s now year the 13th beyond that. I know what a bike is- everybody else fetishes antiques or is hustled into largely. Back in the years of bikes reigning the people who made them did there best- that’s all we should demand now.

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