Author’s Note: My editorial to the Fremont Paper aboutthis incident has been picked up nationally, and BOLT sent letters fromtheir lawyer to the Fremont mayor and city council. Hope it makes a difference:
With terrorists blowing up cities, and illegal immigrants flooding over our borders, I wondered why some cops do what they do.
My wife and I were out for a ride today, breaking in our new Road Glide before we leave for Sturgis in two weeks. We rolled down Interstate 680 to Niles Canyon road, since I haven’t been there in a while, and I wanted to take my wife to the Florence, an old school biker bar nestled at the end of a great canyon ride.
As we rolled into town, I noticed a motor cop sitting in a parking lot, and I checked my speed. Five miles an hour under the limit, so I figured I was good to go. Wrong. Next thing I knew, I got lit up like a Christmas tree. I figured, what the fuck, I hadn’t been drinking, still had stock pipes on the Glide, and no ape hangers yet either. The cop jumped off his bike and came over and yelled that he pulled us over for illegal helmets.
As a former ABATE local president, I kind of had an idea on what the routine was, but nothing prepared me for this asshole cop. First, he grabbed my helmet without getting consent to search, and informed me he was writing me a ticket for an illegal helmet. He said that I could either let him take pictures of my helmet, or he would confiscate them. Then, he told me that in order to proceed; I would have to walk 3 blocks down the street to a head shop/pornography store, where, most conveniently and suspiciously, there were DOT “legal” helmets available for sale for $40 bucks.
The officer then informed me if I drove off with my old helmet, he would arrest me, and my wife, and impound my two-week old bike. Throughout the entire affair, I told the officer that my helmet was not illegal and that I believed it was legal. The cop then made me park my bike and walk 3 long blocks in 90 degree heat, where my wife and I went inside the porno store to check out the helmets. The idiot behind the counter obviously enjoyed the fact that he was getting all this revenue on an otherwise slow day…
We went across the street and my wife had a beer and we thought about our next move.
There was a cool dude out front on a Panhead who obviously knew the routine in this town, and he loaned me his “DOT” approved helmet so that I could walk back down the street and retrieve my bike. When I got back to the bar, I asked my wife what we were going to do. She said, let’s make a break for it! (God I love my wife.) So, we put on our “illegal helmets”, dropped the bike into 1st gear, and peeled the fuck out of Dodge.
We jammed out of Fremont as fast as we could and had a great ride for the rest of the day. I know there are a lot of Bikernet readers in the Bay Area, CA, so I just wanted to warn everyone. Stay out of Niles; if I had a few drinks before we rolled into town, it woulda been hell. I’m going to fight this ticket, and I will keep everyone posted.
Ride Free!
