Riding a dirt bike or a 4-wheeler is illegal in New York City. But some ATV riders and bikers say they feel safer riding than facing the NYPD in a car...
Watch Brut filmmaker Léo Hamelin's latest documentary inside NYC's bike life culture.
Watch Brut filmmaker Léo Hamelin's latest documentary inside NYC's bike life culture.
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NewsTranscript
00:00It's just like when you ride, it feels like, it's like time, your time, you know, it's
00:15just your time, you're in your bike and you just enjoy it.
00:18Hold on, hold on, hold on.
00:22You feel no worries, you just feel free, you gotta get on the feeling, you know.
00:30When you ride with 50, 100 other people feeling the same way as you, just enjoying yourself,
00:35you know, it's just a great lifestyle.
00:41Nothing but happiness, all you think about is just fun.
00:45Bikers, sometimes hundreds of them, go around the boroughs of New York City almost every
01:04day and night.
01:05Their motto is no one's left behind.
01:08For Brute, I'm taking you into the bike life culture of New York City.
01:12Their hobby is mostly illegal and the NYPD is never fun.
01:19While we're here, police could come at any second, so I gotta make sure my bike is looking
01:22that way.
01:23Because it could be in a split second, because there's an entrance over there, entrance over
01:28there where we came in through, so they could just, we can't see them until they're right
01:32here.
01:33It would be too late for me to turn my bike back around.
01:34We're not just some guys that just riding and acting crazy in the street, like, this
01:39is what we love.
01:40This is a hobby for us, you know what I'm saying, like, you know, this is our peace
01:43of mind, you know what I mean?
01:45Everybody got a hobby, man.
01:46Our hobby's just a little dangerous, and it's illegal on top of that.
01:50I had my fair share of chases with the police officers, so I'm a little in the game now,
01:58I'm in tune, you know, so.
02:00That's part of the...
02:02Yeah, it's just all part of the sport, part of the sport.
02:05When you're on that bike, it's like when you're on a boat on the ocean.
02:10You just hear the waves.
02:11You hear nothing.
02:12It's like a peace of mind.
02:40When I'm on the bike, I feel way more safe than anything.
02:43Yo, I'm glad you said that.
02:46I get in the car, I'm like this, two and ten, two and ten, sit up straight.
02:51I feel the same way.
02:52And I don't even care about the police.
02:53Now, when I'm in the car, it's like, god damn.
02:55Sir, what's up, sir?
03:00You know what I'm saying?
03:01On the bike, you feel way more in control.
03:05In control.
03:06She don't look good yet.
03:08She look good.
03:09I'm talking about the candy operation.
03:15How'd you learn all that stuff?
03:17Just...
03:18Um...
03:19I taught myself.
03:22I got a few good friends that taught me a lot of things, too, as well.
03:30Yeah, bikes always keep you out of trouble.
03:33Yeah, bikes always keep you out of trouble, because I'm not a jailbird.
03:37I got locked up a few times, but it's just been for petty things, you know what I'm saying?
03:42But it definitely will, you know, because it's like, I don't have time to be out on the street
03:53or hanging on a block to start a beef with any of you guys, you know what I'm saying?
03:59I'm trying to make sure my bike is ready, because we got a ride tomorrow.
04:03You know what I'm saying?
04:04It's different energies, you know?
04:06When you just wake up and you don't have nothing to do, that's why, you know,
04:09the next thing you know, they see a gun or this or they doing real crazy things
04:15that they shouldn't be doing that will really change their life, you know?
04:33Mmm.
04:44Yo, first of all, don't start crying.
04:46I didn't wait for you for... I never waited for you. Never.
04:50This is what you're telling me. Never.
04:52My five times don't count to your one million.
04:57He said my five times don't count to your million.
05:00All right, bro.
05:02It's off the charts.
05:16If they give us somewhere to ride, we wouldn't have to ride in the street.
05:19But the government don't want to give us nowhere to ride.
05:22So where we gonna go?
05:24And this is our culture, we ride on the street.
05:32Yeah.
05:58Uh-huh, uh-huh.
06:01Yeah.
06:17Put your hands behind your back.
06:19Behind your back.
06:21Put your hands behind your back.
06:23Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
06:26Stop, stop, stop, stop.
06:29I just calmed him down. I just calmed him down.
06:31I just calmed him down.
06:33I just calmed him down.
06:35I just calmed him down.
06:37Look at his feet. Look at his feet.
06:39Look at his feet.
06:43Yo, what you moving?
06:50It was just a bad day. It was just like...
06:54You know? It was just a bad day.
06:56Hold on, hold on. Why you got your knee on the fence?
06:58Why you got your knee on the fence?
07:00Look at his knee. Look at his knee.
07:02Look at his knee. Look at his knee.
07:04Look at his knee. Look at his knee.
07:06Look at his knee. Look at his knee.
07:08Look at his knee. Look at his knee.
07:13We're hearing from a man who says an NYPD officer put a knee on his neck.
07:17Video appears to show an officer with his knee on a man's neck during an arrest.
07:22That man tells News 12's Anthony Carlo he did not want to suffer a fate like George Floyd's.
07:28All I could see is the officer's shit.
07:31Like, it was just dark. I couldn't see nothing.
07:33I was just pinned. I couldn't do nothing.
07:35So, I just heard screaming.
07:37You know?
07:39And then, like I said, when I got out of jail the next morning,
07:42and I seen the video, you know?
07:44All my friends, they showed me the video.
07:46And then that's when I called Ole.
07:50It was obviously, obviously shocking.
07:53Like, horrific, just in the sense that
07:55it so clearly mirrored exactly what we had just seen in George Floyd.
07:58It wasn't the police brutality of it all that shocked me.
08:01I'm accustomed to that.
08:02Our clients often have been beat by the police.
08:04They often tell us that they were violently arrested.
08:06But it was just, I guess, the audacity of it.
08:08That they knew all these people were screaming.
08:10Like, screaming.
08:12Telling them specifically, your knee is on his neck.
08:14Your knee is on his neck. Repeatedly.
08:16They know what just happened. They think his life.
08:18They think he's going to lose his life.
08:20And despite that, they know.
08:22They know they're being recorded.
08:25It speaks to the boldness of how they carry on.
08:28Even at this point, the DA's office have never said
08:30that they shouldn't have conducted the arrest like that.
08:32They didn't say, oh, it was a mistake.
08:34This officer behaved poorly.
08:36No, at no point have they condemned the behavior.
08:38And I think that's important.
08:40This is routine.
08:42You know, the George Floyd trial and the whole George Floyd case
08:44and what happened to George Floyd has been treated like
08:46it's this aberration, like it's this anomaly.
08:48And it's not. And that's what's important.
08:50As horrific as we think that is,
08:52there are so many, so many people around this country
08:54who have experienced that, and we don't hear that story.
08:56Sir Carlisle Arnold and his lawyer
08:58fought for the officers involved
09:00to be fired and face criminal charges.
09:02In April 2021,
09:04the Queen's DA decided not to prosecute them
09:06claiming there's insufficient evidence
09:08of an unlawful method of restraint being used.
09:10Charges against Sir Carlisle were dropped
09:12and he filed a civil lawsuit
09:14against the police department.
09:18How did it feel to see
09:20when they were stepping on his neck?
09:22Like,
09:24can't do nothing.
09:26You know, like hopeless.
09:28You know what I'm saying? There's nothing you can do.
09:30You just sit there and just scrape out the cop,
09:32get your knee off my friend's neck!
09:34There's nothing you can do.
09:36Right after George Floyd.
09:38The knee on the neck!
09:40Didn't we just march for this?
09:42That shows you the disconnect.
09:44It don't mean nothing.
09:46I'm going to go f*** George Floyd.
09:48You know, when I can do something wrong,
09:51I got to go to jail.
09:53When they do something wrong,
09:55they ain't got to go to jail,
09:57even though it's illegal now.
09:59That's a whole crime.
10:01He don't got to go to jail,
10:03but I got to go to jail.
10:05What makes him different?
10:07Oh, he's a cop.
10:09That's what it is.
10:11He know the inside people.
10:13Oh, yeah, yo, bro.
10:15I didn't mean it.
10:17All right, man.
10:19You had a war.
10:21Right.
10:23I was just riding a bike.
10:25I'm not trained.
10:27I wasn't trying to kill you.
10:29You had your knee in my neck.
10:31Crazy as hell.
10:33I'm telling you, police is crazy as hell.
10:35Then they tried to call me a gang member.
10:37I said, what?
10:39A gang member?
10:41What the f*** are you talking about?
10:43Because my helmet was red and black.
10:45Look, I ride a blue bike all the time, too.
10:48So what does that tell you?
10:50I guess I'm blood and crip.
10:52F*** it, I'm just blood and crip.
10:54These people f***ing killed me, man.
10:56I'm pretty sure there's some gangbangers out there,
10:58but you didn't meet him.
11:00I ain't got nothing to do with that.
11:04Thank God I got some good friends, boy.
11:14I almost killed you yesterday.
11:16When you turned.
11:18I clipped you?
11:20Almost.
11:22Right in front of you?
11:24Yeah.
11:26Thank God.
11:28These bikes really gave me a different perspective.
11:30I thought it was just riding.
11:32I don't even want to sell drugs no more.
11:34I've got three customers that I make enough.
11:40I just want to ride like I save what I make
11:42for those customers.
11:44Nobody for no money, no nothing.
11:46I got introduced to the right people,
11:48so I got taught the right culture.
12:14They got nothing better to do
12:16but chase us
12:18with a thousand other crimes outside.
12:20As you saw
12:22what they did,
12:24they just want to see
12:26if they can hit one of us,
12:28knock us down,
12:30get us out of here,
12:32get us out of here,
12:34get us out of here,
12:36get us out of here,
12:38get us out of here,
12:40get us out of here,
12:43get us out of here,
12:45get us out of here,
12:47get us out of here.
12:49They follow you
12:51but they don't stop you.
12:53If they got the chance to, yeah.
12:55Tonight we didn't get
12:57into one of those predicaments.
12:59In the Bronx and Harlem,
13:01they really don't f*** around like that.
13:03But in Queens and Brooklyn,
13:05they really f*** around to chase me
13:07a little bit more real out there.
13:09My case is closed.
13:11It don't matter when you don't die.
13:13Not to say it like that.
13:15No, to say it like that,
13:17it don't matter when you don't die.
13:19It is what it is.
13:21It's not a big deal. I didn't die.
13:23Life continues.