Wednesday, October 9, 2013

More surfaced today about the bikers

The expectation that officers will act if they witness a crime does not apply for undercover officers. Karasyk didn’t immediately return a call Tuesday.
Carrying no badge or gun and aware of cases in which officers had been suspended or dismissed for blowing their cover, “he had no other option, so he drove away,” said Karasyk, who works with the Detectives’ Endowment Association union.
One of the officers riding that Sunday is a narcotics detective named Samir Gonsalves, CBS 2′s Tony Aiello reported. He made news in April when he was arrested for allegedly pushing an officer who was trying to break up an argument between Gonsalves and his girlfriend.
A second biker with a badge is an undercover officer assigned to the Internal Affairs department, Miller reported.
“The irony there, of course, is they’re the ones who track down police for misconduct,” Miller said on “CBS This Morning.” “He’s been assigned there about three weeks. He hadn’t started his undercover assignment yet, but he was riding along. And he is talking to his lawyers about whether to meet with prosecutors or be questioned by police. So the NYPD hasn’t interviewed him yet.”
Police Officer Identified
Wojciech Braszczok, 32, was publicly identified by his bosses — to whom he allegedly lied when he claimed he had nothing to do with the heinous Sept. 29 attack. Video evidence showed he shattered the window with his gloved hand.
Braszczok surrendered with his lawyer at Central Booking and was charged with rioting and criminal mischief — and he could face up to seven years in prison, sources said.
Authorities wanted to nail Braszczok, a 10-year veteran, on stiffer charges, such as gang assault, but weren’t convinced the charges would stick, sources said.
Braszczok told authorities that he pulled up toward the end of the beating, leaving him no time to help victim Alexian Lien or his terrified wife and 2-year-old daughter in the SUV, sources said.
The cop also said he feared for his life if he blew his cover in any way — but law-enforcement sources scoffed at the claim. He works undercover narcotics, but is on assignment with the NYPD’s Intelligence Division and wasn’t on the clock at the time.
Thug Biker Reginald Chance
The motor psycho charged with starting the biker-mob attack that left a young Manhattan dad beaten to a pulp flipped off photographers in court Sunday — as it emerged that earlier this year, he caught a break from a judge.
Career criminal Reginald Chance, 37, extended both middle fingers as he was hauled into Manhattan Criminal Court on gang-assault and other charges tied to the Sept. 29 beatdown of Alexian Lien.
Chance — who has 21 prior arrests for charges ranging from drugs to robbery to gun possession — was ordered held in lieu $100,000 bond or $75,000 cash.
Chance also received a six-month suspension of his driver’s license — which cops say he ignored when he joined in last week’s 300-biker Hollywood Stuntz ride that ended with the attack on Lien.
Biker Reginald Chance flips the double bird in court as he listens to the charges. Earlier this year, Chance faced 25 years in prison, but got only community service under a deal approved by Judge Suzanne Mondo (inset).

Biker Psychology
What makes bikers tick? We've been talking with a lot of very accomplished riders and trainers recently, and we asked them all the same question about biker psychology and it's relationship to safety.
Lee Parks (of Total Control) thinks that bikers are risk takers, in the noble tradition of the species.
There is a strong tradition of rule-breaking, outlaw mentality among bikers.
Steve Garets of TEAM OREGON believes that bikers have a victim mentality. They blame cage drivers for all crashes, and this causes a fatalistic attitude and failure to take control of our risk factors.
It was suggested that bikers have a death wish. It seems to us that this would be a self-correcting problem, but maybe bikers with death wishes account for some of the statistics.
Fear, or freezing up when confronted with danger, can be countered by training and practice, the knowledge that you have the skills to handle the situation.
We also thought about riding buddies who are victims of biker 'fashion' - guys who don't wear helmets, or wear half-helmets even though they know full-face helmets give better protection, or who ride wearing t-shirts or inadequate gear.
in our 120 years or so of motorcycle history, it seems we failed to develop a well accepted and rational culture of biker risk management.
Cognitive science suggests that our ability to multitask is limited by the working memory we have available. Overloading our working memory can have disastrous consequences for a rider. Management of this limited cognitive resource is vital while learning to ride.
We can take control of our rides, take responsibility for our outcomes, ride rationally, develop the skills needed to counteract fear in dangerous situations and still have a blast on our bikes. In fact, it's more fun this way.

When I read this last article, about safe motorbike riding, I am reminded of a time when I was driving down the highway at the legal speed and I heard the roar of engines and looked behind me to see what must have been 50 or more motorcycles coming up from the rear. I was already in the right lane, so I just continued to drive at the same speed and watched as they moved past me like a flood. They were not the “thugs” who were riding in NYC, however. They didn't do wheelies or try to cut in front of the cars. They rode two by two in an orderly manner down the left lane for what seemed like a very long time. When it was over I felt partly relieved and partly thrilled at the excitement of it. I changed my impression of motorbikers from thugs to lawful citizens, at least in that case.

4:26 I have finished Sidney Poitier's autobiography. He had a lot of struggles in his life and he was both “good” and lucky as he made his way to a high degree of success. The writing was very much a revelation of a vibrant and warm human being. He is philosophical in his thinking and explored many questions in the text. The picture of him as a little boy shows a child who was both whimsical and adventuresome, with parents who luckily had a loving, but firm hand. The village on Cat Island is shown as a benign cultural environment with little if any social class conflicts, as most of the people were equally poor, black and basic in their lifestyle. He said it taught him a sense of himself and his worth, as well as all the survival skills that he needed when he became a teenager and was tossed into the racial stresses of Miami, FL.

Indeed he did manage to extract himself from the hate-filled atmosphere there by determining to save enough money to go north. He managed to survive in NYC by working a number of menial jobs until he fell into an acting role. Each acting job was interspersed with more menial jobs to get along until the next acting job was available. Finally he got his first movie role and had some success with it, and then periodically other movie roles until he got an Oscar and found roles easier to come by and some financial security. Most of the content of this book is about his inner self in interaction with the world. He doesn't stress his successes over his failures, but looks at it all with a good deal of objectivity. It was all interesting and very well-written, especially for a man who had only a few years of schooling. He is self-taught – with the help of an old Jewish waiter at the restaurant where he worked, and has clearly done a great deal of reading on his own since that time. Reading this book was like having a conversation with him. I enjoyed it thoroughly.