I promptly parked my truck in the neighborhood behind Chris Smith’s 4-by, which had arrived moments earlier. "Did you guys see the cops at the park?", I asked. Neither he nor Elliot, who was accompanying him, noticed the cops were there. "You’ll see them soon enough, I’ll warrant," I told them.

I broke out the old GL-1 and commenced taping our encroachment on the scene. I had not seen any bike riders outside or inside the skatepark whilst driving by, but there were plenty gathered outside the gates now. I walked down the row of law enforcers, about seven in all, lined up outside the wrought-iron park fence, video taping their get-up and asking questions as I went. I was rather amused to discover most of them were equipped with smoke bombs, bean bag guns, gas masks, and economy-sized jugs of mace, all set to diffuse any rabble-rousing by evildoers on bicycles. (I later found out that full riot gear was hiding in the cop cars, just in case things really got out of hand.)    

An exceedingly annoying officer with a bullhorn had stationed himself right next to the park gate, and made sure to greet all newcomers with an incommodious "Welcome to Freestone Skatepark, where bikes are not allowed. Please observe all park rules and have a nice day. Heil Hitler!" Well, maybe he didn’t actually speak that last part, but he was thinking it. This megaphoned megalomaniac was fielding questions from riders as I strolled up. Dave Taylor asked how the police knew we would be protesting that day. The officer ignored him at first, but finally referred him to the Gilbert Police Department’s Public Information Officer. I asked if this public information person was present at the park and was told no. I asked why not, since the rest of the force was out there, but I was answered only with a simple-minded stare.

I continued gathering footage of what had become quite the comedic affair. It was then that I saw the best protest idea yet. One kid had drawn a picture of a cop Rodney Kinging a bike rider with the words "Stop the Hate" written on a piece of poster board and taped to his bars. A few other kids had protest sign number plates also.

Out of the three news agencies I had notified of the protest, only one showed up, ABC News 15. They actually sent a field reporter this time, who did quick interviews with a few riders including myself, then jammed. While the reporter seemed unfeeling, the cameraman appeared sympathetic to our cause. Maybe it was because he was black, and he knew well what discrimination felt like. Fight the power! Unfortunately the story, which was scheduled to run on the 10 PM newscast, got cut. I guess that’s just how TV news goes. They don’t have much time, so whatever is deemed less important in the day’s events doesn’t make the cut.

In the process of mingling with the assembled BMX’ers, I met a rider named Matt who was a resident of Gilbert. It turns out he had been one of the riders that had made himself very instrumental in getting the word out about the protest. I decided then and there that he was my new favorite rider, and told him so. Partly because of his organizational skills, but mostly because of his brightly-colored chicken hat.

Just when things were getting kinda stagnant, I discovered a kid had gotten past the Gate Fuhrer and was riding his bike around the park. I swore that he couldn’t have been more than 11 years old. He was quickly seized, of course, and taken to a squad car. All the protesters gathered around and were yelling at the cops to let him go with choruses of "Free Kyle!" Of course they didn’t let him go. What they DID do is slap his bike in the trunk and promptly carted him off downtown, where they probably just called his parents and released him to them.

After Kyle was taken away, the riders stayed around for a bit then started dispersing. Meanwhile, I spied an older woman, about 50 years old or so, standing by the park fence, and decided to bust a mack on dat ass! She had them saggy boobies, wrinkled neck skin, crow’s feet, mmm, MMM! I loves me some saggy boobies! The real reason I approached her was to get an onlooker’s opinion about the whole scenario. I had noticed that she had been there for a good while that the protest was going on, and was intrigued to probe her for some innocent bystander feedback. Turns out she had brought her 5 year old grandson out to the park for the first time to skate that day. Her first responses to my questions were negative ones. She said that we were going about it all wrong, the po-po’s were just doing their jobs, bah, blah, blah. After I expounded our position to her, and explained what we had already done with petitions, meetings with city councils, etc….she loosened up quite a bit.  She could empathize with us because our reasoning was just....reasonable. When I was through with her, she could see no reason at all that the park hours could not be split between bike riders and skaters.

Mr. Dogg and I decided to bounce out of doz nuts around 4 o’clock. The word on the street was that a lot of riders were going to Reed Park in Mesa to protest there, and I wanted to be in that number. There were about 6 riders left when I took off, but the number of Gilbert’s finest guarding the goods had increased to a final count of nine! I was incredulous.

All told, it was so perfect that Kyle Jarko (who is actually 12 years old) rode the park; knowing full well he’d get caught, just to make a statement for the cause. Because of that, I had to inform Matt that he was no longer my favorite rider: Kyle was. Matt understood. Not a damn person cajoled Kyle into doing riding that shit either. It was such a pure representation of what we’re trying to accomplish. Bike riding keeps KIDS out of trouble! ANY positive activity keeps kids out of trouble! Why can’t these assholes get that through their Cro-Magnon man heads? Kyle….he rocked that shit. He really drove the message home that Gilbert and the rest of the Valley cities care more about their foolish rules and covering their own asses than they do about getting juveniles into positive activities that they are interested in and keeping them out of trouble.

In closing, I wanted to mention this: One of the kids at the protest overheard the cops clowning on me among themselves for coming out there—30 years old, riding a kid’s bike for fun, helping out some stupid kids with an even stupider protest. To them I would say this: My bike riding keeps me in shape doing something I love instead of sitting on my ass, gobbling raspberry jelly doughnuts. I’m helping get kids into the positive activity of BMX riding. I’m busting my ass trying to get Valley cities to let us into public skateparks or to build public bikeparks so that riders, myself included, will have a place to practice our positive activity. The only run-ins I’ve ever had with the law have been because I was riding my bike in a public skatepark that my taxes paid for. Yeah, I’m a real loser.