Letter: Metro’s bicycle patrol must go

Thursday, Feb. 18, 1999 | 12:11 p.m.

At 7 p.m. on Jan. 16 in front of the Barbary Coast, a Checker taxi driver noticed the bike patrol had stopped a car on the left on Las Vegas Boulevard, so he attempted to go around on the right. In this incident a Metro bike patrol officer stepped in front of the taxi suddenly, causing another vehicle to strike the taxi in the rear as it stopped to avoid hitting the officer. When the driver's supervisor showed up to interview his driver, the officer yells at the supervisor, who was wearing an identification badge, to give him his license! The officer then wrote the supervisor a misdemeanor citation for "Obstructing a police officer." The preceding incident was reported by Craig Harris in the Trip Sheet, a taxi driver publication. As he said in his article, "a copy of this magazine will be sent to the head of Internal Affairs."

Personally, I think these officers need to be put back in their cars! It has got to be frustrating to see taxi drivers driving in a reckless manner, only to have them disappear, knowing that if you were on your motorcycle or in your car the driver would have received a ticket. If I were condemned to being a bicycle officer, I might be driven to writing an unjust ticket or two, reasoning that now we're even!

Jack Cook