NYPD: You were asking for it (so don't expect us to help)

I got punched in the face on my commute home today. I had just crossed the Manhattan Bridge and was biking south on the bike path on Jay Street. The traffic was backed up, but the bike lane was open. Right in front of me, a car peeled out of the traffic and began to cruise up the bike lane.
At Willoughby, the light was red so the car stopped. I tapped on the trunk to let the driver know that I was trying to pass. As I squeezed past her driver�s side door, I told her she shouldn�t be trying to bypass traffic by driving in the bike lane.
On hearing this, she got out of her car, screaming at me for trying to tell her where she could drive and for touching her car. She started to come towards me and I got off my bike. Before I knew what was going on, she swung at me, punching me in the side of my face. I lifted up my bike to protect myself as she continued to scream at me. At this point, pedestrians pulled her away and a building security guard called the NYPD.
I was a little woozy from the punch but I told her she couldn�t leave the scene because I wanted to press charges.
The cops and an ambulance arrived. I was directed into the ambulance to check my head. I�d blacked out for a second � the impact of the punch had really freaked me out as this was the first time I�d ever taken a punch to the head.(Luckily everything seemed okay. Since the impact was to my lip and jaw, I declined to be driven to the hospital for a cat scan.)
After they had heard her version of events, the cops came and interviewed me. The head officer said that she told him I had punched her first, through her driver�s side window as I was biking past. I told him this absolutely was not true and asked if any of the witnesses on the street had seen this (as many people had seen her slug me). He said the only people who were asserting that I�d attacked first were my assailant and the other occupants of her vehicle, but as far as he was concerned it was my word versus hers. Therefore, if I wanted to press charges, she could also press charges against me.
I had been in too much shock after getting punched to try to find witnesses who would wait around for the cops to show up. I had seen one woman who identified herself with a badge come up to the security guard who was at the scene first and describe to him that I had been attacked, but she wasn�t still around by the time the NYPD was interviewing witnesses.
I asked the cop if it mattered that she had been illegally driving up the bike lane to avoid traffic at the time she assaulted me. He told me that it didn�t matter because "people violate traffic laws in the city all the time."
Thanks for the support, NYPD. Yes, people do break the law all the time, but I�d like to believe it�s the job of our police force to keep our communities safe by actually enforcing the rules.

Tweet