Teen Arrested For Rolling Through Stop Sign, Sparking Outrage in Local Cycling Community
Javier Lopez, 18, was arrested during a group ride near Oveido, Florida, this past weekend after he rolled through a stop sign.
The arresting officer’s dash cam and body cam footage was made public this week.
Lopez was in jail for seven hours before his father, who was also on the ride that morning, posted bail of $8,500.
A photo of a young Florida cyclist in handcuffs went viral over the weekend. What exactly happened in the moments before the shot was taken is up for debate.
Javier Lopez, 18, and Christian Perpinan were on a fast-paced training ride last Saturday near Oveido, Florida, in the midst of a breakaway and seconds ahead of the chasing pack. The pair raced over the flat rural backroads when they approached a stop sign.
Tim Molyneaux, a longtime fixture on the weekly Lakemont ride, said this particular stop sign at the corner of Florida Avenue and Van Arsdale Street is, in essence, a wide-open sweeping curve, with a driveway to the right and a gravel road that quickly dead ends going forward. The line of sight allows riders to see traffic from quite a distance away.
“The only cars I ever saw at that intersection belong to police officers trying to catch cyclists,” Molyneaux told Bicycling.
Lopez and his companion slowed, then rolled, through the stop sign. But standing on the gravel road with a speed gun was Seminole County Sheriff’s Deputy Brent Matre who yelled at the two teenagers to stop. A pursuit entails. Ninety seconds later, Lopez, brown hair cascading out from under his POC helmet, was put in handcuffs.
Everyone involved agrees that the two riders should have stopped at the sign, but that’s about where the agreement ends.
Bob Kealing, the Seminole County Sheriff’s Department public information officer, did not answer Bicycling’s questions about the arrest, saying, “We’re letting the report speak for itself.” But Matre’s dash- and body-cam footage raises almost as many questions as it answers, and at times seemingly contradicts his report.
Dash cam video:
While both videos show the two riders rolling through the stop, neither is clear enough to show them “look back at (Matre), acknowledge his order,” smile, and ride away, as Matre claims twice in the report viewed by Bicycling. Because the videos’ audio hadn’t yet activated, it’s not known when Matre yelled out to the riders. Lopez’s advocate, Bike Law’s Rachael Maney, claimed the riders didn’t hear Matre’s order to stop because of a noisy headwind they were riding into.
The videos’ audio doesn’t kick in until almost 30 seconds later, after Matre enters his police vehicle and hits the siren. The two riders believed the deputy was pursuing someone else, so they continued riding, attempting to maintain their breakaway lead. Lopez allegedly waved the officer to pass them—once again, it’s hard to tell from the video–but it was only after Matre pulls alongside them and verbally tells them to pull over do they comply. The pursuit lasts about 40 seconds.
Body cam video:
Within seconds of exiting his police vehicle and only 90 seconds after the two young men rolled through the stop sign, Matre makes a beeline for a confused Lopez, attempting to handcuff him. Lopez initially pulls his arm away when Matre grabs it, but then quickly complies.
According to the report, Matre had to struggle with the cyclist until he “was able to control and defeat his efforts. I gave the defendant another command to stop resisting and stop pulling away from me. I finally was able to place the defendant into handcuffs.”
By this time, the rest of the cycling group began to arrive on the scene. Despite Matre writing in his report “the large crowd began to show signs of hostility and unruliness” and accusing them of “interfering with my investigation,” the video shows the group maintaining a deferential distance away from the deputies, but asking some pointed questions. None of them attempt to physically interfere with the arrest, although one rider pulls out a phone and begins recording.
Almost as an afterthought, Matre asks Perpinan—who is Caucasian—if he had stopped at the stop sign. When he says yes, Matre turns his attention back to arresting Lopez. Matre doesn’t speak to him again, nor does he attempt to arrest him for fleeing alongside Lopez. In the police vehicle, Matre asks Lopez if he’s an American citizen. When Lopez says yes, Matre doesn’t press further.
Maney didn’t outright accuse the deputy of bias when discussing the case with ClickOrlando.com, but admitted “the optics (aren’t) great.”
“You … got two people who were riding together that made a left-hand turn at the same time, that were stopped at the same time, and that seemed to have the same story about what transpired,” Maney said.
In a matter of minutes, Matre pulls away with Lopez in the back of his vehicle. He takes Lopez to the Seminole County Jail, where Lopez is booked on a misdemeanor charge of resisting arrest without violence and fleeing and eluding a law enforcement officer, a felony. Lopez would be in jail for seven hours before his father, who was also on the ride that morning, could post $8,500 bail.
The Florida State Attorney’s Office has yet to receive the reports and evidence from the case, says agency spokesman Todd Brown, who anticipates a charging decision could still be weeks away.
Matre, who has been with the Seminole County Sheriff’s Department since September 2015, has received only one reprimand in that time for missing traffic court.
According to Maney, Lopez moved to Florida from Puerto Rico just last year. He’s a full-time college student who, in addition to riding hundreds of miles a week, works part time at David’s World Cycle. A GoFundMe page has raised more than $3,000 to cover the Lopez family’s attorney fees.
Lopez “is a good kid (who) loves to ride his bike,” Maney told ClickOrlando. “He’s never been cited, ticketed, arrested for anything. (This has been) a traumatic experience for both Javier and his family.”
A post shared by The Perpinan Project (@the_perpinan_project) on Feb 8, 2020 at 12:05pm PST
That Saturday morning ride routinely attracts up to 200 cyclists, although not all together and not on the same route.
Molyneaux said he believes that neighborhood complaints about the large groups of riders have led to tensions between the cycling community and law enforcement. This latest incident will likely enflame those tensions even more.
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