Posted on September 23, 2022

San Francisco Bicycle Coalition Says Not to Call Police About Stolen Bikes Because It Hurts ‘Black and Brown’ People

Joshua Young, The Post Millennial, September 12, 2022

San Francisco crime has skyrocketed since 2020 and bike theft has grown into an epidemic in the Golden City. In response the San Francisco Bike Coalition wrote on their “considerations” section of their website that victims of bike theft should reconsider calling the police as “Black and brown” people could be harmed from the interaction.

One Twitter user responded, “San Francisco Bicycle Coalition @sfbike acknowledges that ‘Black and Brown people’ (sic) are way overrepresented as bike thieves, but says not to report them, because filing theft reports leads to them being ‘impacted’ by police. You can’t even make this up.”

Stanley Roberts posted a screenshot of the original message which read, “Black and brown people are often deeply harmed or even killed by interactions with the police, and the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition decided in 2020 to end any formal relationship with SFPD.”

The organization recommended “minimal contact with the police” {snip}

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The organization has posted with frequency about “black and brown” communities and asserted dubious racially essentialist screeds in keeping with the bigotry of anti-racist doctrine. Examples include, “Ever heard of a pretextual stop? It’s basically a way police can make racially biased traffic stops for minor violations (like riding a bike without pedal reflectors), disproportionately targeting and harming Black and brown communities.”

They also supported a law to reduce traffic policing because that was racist, too.

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