a letter to the police

the police vs. GB? are we going backwards? a year ago i thought the hate had worn off. the police were being more reasonable and the kids on bikes were being more respectful. i thought it was a win-win situation for both parties. but lately it seems as though kids on bikes are back on the most wanted list in hanover borough. i can not claim this for all of the cops though. a few are still being reasonable and not giving kids fines for such petty things as riding on a sidewalk, or "loitering" in a convience store's parking lot. officer bunty used to be my(bryan) number 1 enemy. i talked shit, made fun of him and anything else i could to get under his skin. and he just kept handing out fines to me for the stupidest stuff. then after being arrested by him for the 3rd time i thought maybe i should try being respectful. it worked. he treated me with respect in future altercations and i try to continue to treat him with it. it can work the other way too. treat the kids with repsect and they'll treat you the same. the bike riding will never stop. the trespassing will never stop. no matter how many fines you give out - it won't stop. all you are doing is burdening the parents with another bill they have to pay. no parent is going to force their kid to stop doing something they love because they got a fine for sitting in a school's parking lot. hanover borough has no excuse for not allowing some leniency when it comes to bike riding. we asked for a skatepark and were practically laughed out of the building. we were told hanover borough has no money to help and refused to donate any unused park land. where do you expect the kids to go? the YMCA even got rid of their few ramps in favor of basketball courts. seriously, basketball courts? participation in baseball, football, soccer, basketball, etc. are down over the past few years. bmx and skateboarding participation is up by over 35% over 1997. over 15,000,000 kids in the U.S. ride bmx or skateboard. if a group of kids decided to play baseball in center square what would you tell them? you would tell them to go play at one of the very many fields in this area. but what about bikes? we don't have anywhere else to go. where do you want us to go? where do you expect us to go? there is no where. if we want to ride a ramp we have to go to crack alley or the old townsound. there isn't anywhere else. this is basically a plea for some respect and understanding. don't yell at us as if we are drunk drivers or rapists. don't get in our face or ignore us after we ask you a question. maybe give some kids a break? riding on the sidewalk or on the wrong side of the road? ask them nicely to get off the sidewalk or to ride on the right side of the road. see some kids sitting in a parking lot riding around? ask them to leave. do this enough and you will see a change. give out a fine? kids will rebel and do it again. thats how kids are. and lets be honest, aren't there a lot of other things out there for a police officer to be doing other than giving out five fines to kids for riding a pedal cycle on a sidewalk? in one hour on sunday in the square i saw 3 people run red lights and 2 illegal right turns. instead of following 5 kids on bikes around for 20 minutes why not catch a few of those people instead? i think a few of those people thinking twice next time before running a red light would better serve our community. don't you?