Bike Cop in the ICU, Protests, Walk Outs

Sometimes it seems that nobody is safe from cars. Well, in reality nobody is safe from cars. This was exemplified yesterday as 4 Denver police officers on bikes, on the sidewalk, were run down while escorting students who were protesting.

As the Denver Post reported, students at East High School walked out of class in protest of the non-indictment of Darren Wilson in the shooting death of Michael Brown. Denver police escorted the students, when apparently a driver had a "medical issue" and gunned his Mercedes sedan, hopped a curb and barreled into 4 officers. KKTV reports that, according to a bystander, one officer was dragged 100 feet before the car finally crashed into a restaurant.

Today the protests moved to Lincoln High School, as students there took their turn marching to the capitol building. The police seem to have decided to take no chances, and rolled out at least 20 cruisers according to local papers.

I can say that the show of force from the police was nothing to joke about. They fully blocked traffic and took no chances with motorists today

I would love to know if the use of more vehicles and the full stop of traffic was in direct response to the out of control driver yesterday. If it was, and I would hazard to guess that it was, then it would be interesting to see if this would affect DPD's handling of future cases involving drivers,

Already Denver has a pretty serious issue with hit and run drivers, not to mention the people who act like human beings and stay at the scene of their accidents.

17 times a day a hit-and-run is reported in Denver

This incident could be a reason to turn attention back towards the inherent dangers of so many people operating 3000 lb vehicles capable of speeds up to and exceeding 200 mph. Sadly I assume that it will just be a blip, a tragic "accident". Already officers have been quoted expressing frustration towards the students protesting, rather than towards the car and driver who may have permanently altered this officer's life. Yes, the students may have used profanity towards the generalized idea of police and policing in this country, but sadly the real dangers go unnoticed and un-addressed just feet from us everyday.

I hope all the officers can recover fully, and I hope the driver with the "medical emergency" has his license suspended for at least a year, despite the fact that this sounds like it may have been a true "accident".