‘Wheelies are not a crime,’ say cyclists riding in support of handcuffed teen – NJ.com

After police handcuffed a Perth Amboy teenager and confiscated his and three friends’ bicycles after a wheelie-filled ride through traffic captured on video last week, dozens of cyclists held a ride in support of their younger two-wheeled compatriots on Monday night.

“We wanted to support the young men who wanted to ride without being arrested,” said Alturrick Kenney, 44, a member of the largely Black, Newark-based RBG Cycling group, who is also the Essex County surrogate. “We feel that laws that discourage people from cycling should be removed from the books.”

Monday’s ride, which took about three hours, was organized by Urban Bikerz, a racially and ethnically mixed group of cyclists in northeastern New Jersey. The group’s president, Julio Cordero, 40, of Elizabeth, a tech worker for a pharmaceutical company, said the group holds frequent flash rides and decided to schedule one in reaction to last week’s incident.

More than 50 cyclists on road bikes, mountain bikes, fixed-gear bikes and other types gathered at Warinanco Park in Linden for the 6 p.m. ride

“It was upsetting,” Cordero said of the video. Referring to police and public officials in Perth Amboy, he said, “Communicate your stringent bike laws a little better.”

The video, posted on YouTube and TikTok, showed Perth Amboy police officers in patrol cars stopping a group of a half-dozen or so mostly Black and Latino teenagers riding BMX bikes, popping wheelies and weaving around cars on Perth Amboy streets.

The youths were told by a white supervising officer that their bikes would not be confiscated, but warned that should be more careful and that they were supposed to have their bikes registered and carry licenses.

“You guys are supposed to have licenses and all that kind of stuff,” the white-shirted supervisor tells the group. “Guys, we don’t make the rules. You guys know when there’s 30 or 40 of you together, it creates a problem for people driving.”

The confrontation grew more contentious, however, after a police sergeant who had spotted the group earlier arrived on the scene. The sergeant exchanges words with one of the teens, then tells other officers to “take their bikes,” and when the teen does not immediately consent, she cuffs him. The video indicated that the cuffed teen was released and the bikes returned.

The video — posted on the same day a Minneapolis jury found a white police officer guilty of second and third degree murder charges in the death of George Floyd, a Black, unarmed man — was decried on social and mainstream media as an overreaction by police to the daring but essentially harmless antics of young men of color, a sentiment echoed by Kenney and other middle-aged roadies who pedaled in solidarity with them.

“If they were white girls and young, would they have been treated with the same harshness that those boys were treated with?” Kenney said before the start of the 40-mile round-trip, from Linden to Perth Amboy and back.

The cyclists were escorted for several miles by Linden Police vehicles with lights flashing, at times halting traffic at intersections to let the bikers ride through. The group was joined by others along the way, and eventually numbered about 70 by the time they stopped outside Perth Amboy City Hall, Cordero said.

There, Cordero and other speakers called for the withdrawal of local laws that can be used by police to harass young cyclists. Cordero said later that Perth Amboy Police observed the group but did not intervene.

Cycling activists joined the ride from at least as far away as Trenton. One was Wills Kinsley, 32, of the Trenton Cycling Revolution, a member of cycling’s “tall bike” subculture, which uses bikes made from welding one standard frame atop another, allowing the rider to see above traffic.

Kinsley, who is white, works as a sign fabricator and fashioned, “Wheelies are not a crime” placards that he and other riders fixed to their bikes for the ride.

He had driven up from the state’s capital with another cycling revolutionary and fellow tall-biker, Drew Glenn, 35, a bar manager from Trenton, who is also white.

“Saw the video, obviously not pleased with it,” Glenn said before the ride, under a blue sky and the temperature around 60 degrees. “My buddy offered me a ride. We ride tall bikes around Trenton. Beautiful day for a bike ride.”

Still another tall-bike rider, Jared Lewis, 29, of Randolph, said the impulse by police to encourage the un-helmeted teens in the video to ride more safely was understandable. And Lewis agreed with others who thought that the police supervisor who initially addressed the teens was being reasonable before the sergeant arrived and tensions escalated.

“They’re like any person,” Lewis, who identifies as “half-Black,” said of individual police officers. “They do get stressed out. They don’t want to knock on somebody’s door and say, ‘Your child was killed by a car.’”

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Steve Strunsky may be reached at sstrunsky@njadvancemedia.com.