Over here in The Netherlands, about 10 years ago, there was a lot of commotion about a group of white supremacy-gangs wearing Lonsdale bomberjacks, and people wearing those were banned from certain clubs, etc.

According to your logic, in this case, everyone wearing a Lonsdale bomberjack would have to be arrested, and they would have to be banned by law? Isn't that outlawing the symptom, instead of outlawing the actual problem?

EDIT: Apparently this was not just an issue in The Netherlands, but more widespread: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/germany/147...

> "According to your logic, in this case, everyone wearing a Lonsdale bomberjack would have to be arrested, and they would have to be banned by law? Isn't that outlawing the symptom, instead of outlawing the actual problem?"

What? No. Just no.

It may be different in the Netherlands, but in the US riding dirtbikes on public streets is illegal. The bikes themselves are not street legal. The bikes don't have plates, turn signals, mirrors or horns. They are not registered with the DMV. In Pennsylvania they are wildly in violation of noise laws for motorcycles (they drown out conversations indoors when they pass on the streets). Totally unlicensed and almost certainly therefore uninsured (which is again illegal). Riding bikes of any sort in gangs is further illegal, breaking all sorts of traffic laws.

This going after dirt-bike riders is not about going after a symptom or superficial attribute of some other crime. It is the crime. It is the actual problem.

If I were saying "go after cars with spinney wheels" (which are perfectly legal) or "go after people wearing only red or blue" (which is perfectly legal) then your comparison would be apt, but that is not what is going on here.

You might want to just clarify since I could imagine it being a regional language issue- a "Dirt bike" is a type of off-road motorcycle, not a human-powered bicycle.

Ah, good point. A dirt-bike is basically a stripped down off-road motorcycle. Fast, loud, and cheap.

That clarifies it for me. I was imagining a bicycle.

A motocross bike would be a good term.

The article's comment in context is that in his previous experience as a prosecutor, urban blacks were doing the same thing he was as a youth, yet the outcomes were different.

We don't have to invent scenarios to explain away the different results - they are his experience as a prosecutor and he has identified them as being identical. It's not an account from a newspaper where we don't know the details; it's cases he has personally worked on, and hence knows the intimate details we never hear of.

This comment is essentially the same as another, this reply applies equally here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6924774

TL;DR: I think the writer is either somehow unaware of the issues with dirtbikes in cities (unlikely), or is banking on his audience being unaware of the problem. Either way, I think he is being disingenuous. I do not believe he actually got away with that sort of thing as a teenager.

Because a blanket statement saying that "[non-criminal] riding dirtbikes in a city is clearly antisocial behaviour that needs to end" isn't being disingenuous?

There is no such thing as "[non-criminal] dirt-bike riding in cities". Riding dirt-bikes in cities in the US is illegal. People who do it are breaking numerous traffic and road laws.

Asserting that doing this is anti-social is hardly disingenuous.

Even if it were legal, the noise pollution alone would make it unquestionably anti-social as far as I am concerned. I'd rather have tractor trailers using jake brakes in my neighborhood, that's how unreasonably loud these bikes are.

(In case there is a misunderstanding here: dirt-bikes are stripped down light-weight motorcycles meant for off-road use only. They are not street legal. Similar I believe to a motocross bike.)

I guess my real problem was you calling the author disingenuous, when the author specifically identified 'riding dirt bikes on the streets in the suburbs' and you explained this away to actually being 'riding dirt bikes in paddocks in rural areas'. The author's point is that this was the same crime, but suburban whites were not pursued for it - and you're saying "it's not the same crime, the whites were riding around on farms, not streets".

This bit of cultural knowledge is important.

I was thinking of dirtbikes as their UK equivalent. Here, youth ride scooters / mopeds and some of them are styled as like dirtbikes. And there are probably road legal dirt bikes of more than 125 cc.

The gang context is also really important.

That seems besides the point in this case though since the author himself describes these as 'shenanigans that had rarely earned my own classmates anything more than raised eyebrows and scoldings.'

To be clear, I don't think what I am saying detracts from the authors point, I just find it plausible that specifically the dirt-bike related arrests/fines/probations were legitimate.

The author probably was not in a dirt-bike biker gang when he was a kid, as far as I know that phenomenon is new.

(And honestly, I am surprised that the police were able to catch any of them in the first place. Chasing them down city streets would be extremely dangerous...)

The writer was(is) a prosecutor. These aren't hypothetical cases, these are actual things he experience and actual cases he tried. If it were a bunch of kids in a gang riding bikes to terrorize a neighborhood, I think he is probably the person most likely to be aware of that and the differences from his youth. I'm not sure you can challenge his authority on the matter and argue he just doesn't know whats really going on considering his position as part of the criminal justice system.

The writer is interested in pushing a narrative (one that I happen to support, just so that we are clear here). The dirt bike thing is slipped in with some other clearly unreasonable stuff, but I fear he is either stretching with the dirt bike example to pad out that section, or is aware of the problem but is giving those kids the benefit of the doubt an assuming that they had nothing to do with the dirt bike gangs.

Even if those kids had nothing to do with those gangs, riding dirt-bikes in a city is clearly anti-social behavior that needs to end. If there is a racial bias in the enforcement of those laws, that needs to end too, and the white kids need the book thrown at them too for it, but I really don't believe that the author use to get away with riding dirt bikes around in cities. That isn't standard teenager shenanigans.

This is the problem with black and white statements, there's always someone ready to jump in and prove there's middle ground. I am a well off white male and I've ridden a beaten up old dirt bike in the street plenty of times. Why? Because I like to ride off road, but you don't get to do that without tune ups, repairs etc. During riding season I am sure I annoyed neighbors with a weekly ten minute ride around a few blocks (and a large abandoned lot in my old city neighborhood). I even skip the helmet often during this so I can hear sounds as I diagnose a problem.

If you were doing that in a city, I think it would be more than reasonable for cops throwing the book at you. In underpopulated areas the concept of there being a victim starts to disappear, but you still should not be doing that.

"throw the book at you" should be applied to non-victimless crimes, not things that you just don't like or agree with. Misdemeanor? Ridiculous. Moving violation with a fine? That's fine, I accept the consequences of my actions when they are proportionate to the action.

Yes, some youth riding dirt bikes will be gang members, and something needs to be done about that.

What the percentages are is up for discussion. The usefulness of taking a gang member and making it even harder for them to get employment is something that needs to be discussed.

Gangs are a symptom of other problems. Tackling gangs without tackling those other problems seems odd to me.

Not only this, but it's also very dangerous and intimidating. More than once here in the UK I've been faced with yobs riding dirt bikes at very high speeds in pedestrianised areas or on paths in public parks. The people who do it have no consideration for the safety of those around them, and often drive close by people on purpose just to scare them.

This was also an issue in Baltimore recently.

Yeah, I've personally seen it in Philadelphia, and heard about it in Baltimore and NYC. I've yet to hear about anything like it in Seattle though.

Give me a cross street and I will burn some donuts in ur lawn.

To put this into context there is a documentary coming out about dirt bikes and 4-wheelers in Baltimore.

http://12oclockboys.com/

I have personally gotten fairly close to hitting a 4 wheeler in ATL and see gangs of them roaming my neighborhood. It seemed to me like they were just having a good time, certainly disturbing the peace and creating dangerous road conditions though. Then again that isn't all too unusual in my neighborhood.

then how do you apply that law to everyone? only white people can ride dirt bikes? only people not in gangs can? the arrest should be for riding dirt bikes in a gang then, because part of the burden of the law is making it clear what it stands for

Obviously everybody should be busted for riding dirt bikes in cities, particularly in gangs (riding in gangs inherently means that several other traffic laws are being broken as well, and when they scatter when police try to stop them you throw in all sorts of additional crimes...)

In unpopulated areas? I'm sure the local police have methlabs to worry about, but sure, arrest them too if they ride on the street or trespass.

I am not saying that a racial discrepancy in enforcement is acceptable. I am just saying that the police taking issue with somebody riding around the city on a dirt bike is not necessarily the police making a mountain out of a molehill. If they are arresting only black people that do this, then the problem is that they are not also arresting white people that do it.