Critical Mess Update: LAPD Looking Into Incident. Working Group to Form Next Year.

Critical Mass takes a rest in February of 2008. Photo: digablesoul/Flickr

The now Streetsblog-Famous Lt. Andre Dawson gave me a call last night to discuss where the LAPD is in working on its bike policy after we traded messages about last Friday's incident between the LAPD and Critical Mass.  We discussed a couple of issues, including last week's clash, and there's a couple of quick notes he agreed that I should pass on.

First, as mentioned in the comments section by Aurisha Smolarski of the Bike Coalition, the LAPD has promised a full investigation into last week's Critical Mass incident.  Commander Jeff Greer in operations, who is also working on bicycling-related issues, and Dawson met this morning and agreed that further investigation was warranted.

As for the Bicycling Working Group , while Dawson is charged with its creation, he is on vacation basically for the rest of the month.  At this point, there hasn't been discussion of who will sit on the working group or what its full charter will be.  Those discussions are basically on hold for another month.  However, there is already a review of LAPD policy as it relates to bicycling being done internally by Commander Greer in Operations. 

Last, while it is appropriate for people to leave messages at the commissioner's office, or the Lieutenant's cell phone, regarding specific incidents; the investigations will be done by the watch commanders and division heads for the local precincts.

I'll be trying to contact Commander Greer before the end of the week.  Feel free to leave any questions in the comments section and I'll pass them along.