*quality

Boosting this quality contribution up in the Hot Listing - declared quality by Mordhaus.

So here's the text of the statute,

Bicycle riding on the Rainbow Harbor Esplanade is prohibited in excess of three (3) miles per hour between the hours of ten o'clock (10:00) a.m. and ten o'clock (10:00) p.m., except City employees in the performance of their duties.

Sounds like both he and the office where wrong on different sides of the bylaw. The Officer was wrong to say they couldn't ride there. The biker though was 'almost' certainly riding at more than 3 miles per hour, which IS prohibited.

He didn't have to be such a dick. I get it, but you know he's going to beat that anger out on someone else later.

Police seem to view their role in the public differently than what's expected of them.

No kidding, why not say "Officer, I thought we'd be asked this so I looked into it ahead of time and the bylaw says..." Instead of pretending he's being deprived of some basic human right. You want cops to treat you like a person? Treat them like people.

In this case the cop was even right, but wasn't clear on the exact bylaws, but why the hell would he be? It's not like he's a dedicated esplanade cop.

It was a huge victory in his 15 year old eyes and the eyes of his friends. Hopefully he takes the advice of the cop and this isn't the height of his 'fame'.

He asked him calmly and respectfully "has there been a law change" and the officer said "yeah, you can't ride your bikes on the boardwalk", which was a lie, the law had not changed and you CAN ride your bike there.
Once the cop LIES to try to trick you out of your rights (like the right to ride your bike on the boardwalk), there's no reason at all to be respectful, he's a douchebag powertripping liar and should be treated as such.
The one who's a dick is the uneducated officer, not the teenager who knows the law. If you are enforcing the law, you had damn well better know what it really is and not just make shit up as you go along. If someone educates you on what you should already know, it's no excuse to start being a smarmy douchebag, which is exactly what the officer did with his "OK, you wanna go that way, we can go that way" which was a clear threat, and his "so, did you get your law degree on facebook" derision, which was funny seeing as the kid knew the law better than he, so where did he get his training in the law, his chosen profession, a cracker jack box? WTF asshole?!?
And he repeatedly asks "where did you get that", but if he had a brain, he would know where laws and statutes are found, and since he quoted it by number (yes, the wrong number) it was clear he was intending to be quoting the legal statutes, not just some internet theory.

No, the officer was absolutely wrong. He didn't tell them you can't ride fast, he said "you can't ride bikes down here, f you could pass that (erroneous) word along, that will keep people from complaining to me...and I won't come talk to you." which means 'do as I say and tell your friends to do it too, or I'll come harass you (and lie to you about the law you haven't broken)'.

Why the hell is a cop getting paid $200k a year? At best, they should be paid US median salary which is a small fraction of that.

Maybe the biker was right (if only to a certain extent, as was pointed out above), but when the officer conceded the point and moved on, the biker should have been somewhat gracious. His gloating and goading is no better than the officer's ignorance, and in a society where we're trying to encourage cops to be respectful to people, those people need to be just as respectful to the cops. His poor attitude is why I'm downvoting this. It does not deserve the attention nor the views.

I disagree with your take on two counts.

First and foremost, just because somebody else is wrong or being a jerk does NOT automatically make the proper response being an equal or bigger jerk. Even when dealing with police officers. Yes, we expect officers are supposed to be the ones taking the higher road, but lets not just automatically lower the bar for everyone else. Lets encourage the civil part of civil society.

The second point is the presumption that an officer responding to complaints from people is somehow wrong. We have laws in place to balance the rights between all of us. In this case people have the right to walk on the sidewalk without watching to be run over by bikers, and bikers have the right to ride on the sidewalk at no more than 3mph(a very slow walk). If an officer gets complaints from folks about the bikers, he's not being a jerk to go over and check things out. It is, in fact, his job. The people complaining have the same rights as the guys on their bikes and it's the nuance of our laws that dictate who's in the right. In this case it certainly appears that those who complained to the officer where within their rights to do so because it's pretty certain the bikers weren't dropping onto the sidewalk from above at less than 3mph. The bikers were technically within their rights to point out to the officer that merely riding their bikes there was also legal. For the officer's part it looks like he started off with the actual impression that biking on sidewalks was not allowed, but backed off when the biker convinced him it was. In fact, the biker convinced him so much the officer FAILED to properly enforce the bylaw by insisting the bikers slow down. At this point, the complainers rights were stepped on by the officer being too passive and the bikers were left to ride faster than the bylaw states they should.

*nsfw

This video has been flagged as being Not Suitable For Work - declared nsfw by ant.

I find it insane that you are totally willing to ignore the adult officer STARTING the interaction by being a liar and a controlling dickhead by abusing his power by issuing illegal commands, but are going to continue to lambast the 15 year old kid who just won an argument with a douchebag liar because of his knowledge for being a bit excited about it.
Would it have been more adult and better if he took the high road the entire time, perhaps. Did he have a duty to be an exponentially better human being than the person who's ostensively trained and paid over $200000 a year to be a decent human being? Absolutely not. Lets start by encouraging those in authority that we pay to be civil to be civil, then we can move on to children who've been assaulted and insulted.

No, the presumption is that an officer that responds to complaints from people with lies and abuse (lying about your rights and the law is abuse when it comes from a law enforcement officer, so are illegal commands telling you to pass on the illegal command) is somehow wrong.
We have laws in place to balance the rights between all of us, and if officers can lie about them, ignore them, and make threats and insults when informed about them with impunity, we no longer have those rights. Period.
No, he's not being a jerk checking things out, he's being a jerk by telling them to leave and not ride when that's not the law and he has no right to tell them to do those things.
Yes, citizens who don't know better had every right to complain. The officer had a DUTY to know the law before trying to enforce it. He failed miserably. He's in the wrong.
He only backed off because the kid(s) obviously knew his rights, had he not known his rights, and appeared to know the exact statute they derived from, he would almost certainly have been removed illegally.
Once again, that's a failure of the officer, a failure to know the law he's trying to enforce. That's on him, not the children, it's his JOB to know the law, a job we pay him OVER $200000 a year to do incredibly poorly.

Adults are expected to be adults, not to act like younger, dumber children than the youngest and dumbest child they speak with. Police have a sworn DUTY to do so, and we pay them ridiculously well for it. 15 year old kids, they act like kids. The cop is the jerk, he started by lying, and illegally commanding, then when corrected becomes insulting and smarmy instantly. He should have simply asked them "what's that number again" and gone to his issued computer and looked it up, then returned and offered speeding tickets if they were still riding fast, and offered the correct number if they weren't, he should NOT have reacted as he did.

Unfortunately Newt, the ending proves the officer may be misinformed, but calling him a controlling dickhead is a bit much. There is a concept of "keeping the peace" that could be applied here. He mentions they were "doing tricks" which usually means skateboard-esque jumps and slides which could come into endangering the public.

Also, after the officer walks away, the kid tries to prod him into a real confrontation. The only reason I can see for that is YouTube views or he's just a mouthy little shit.

I disagree. He lied to attempt to control the kids...to me, "controlling dickhead" is apropos.
Note, he did not tell them to be careful, he told them they can't ride there. Had he said 'you need to be careful and slow when riding here, and now you're on notice so if you hurt someone it will be considered intentional and charged as a crime', I wouldn't argue. He didn't do that, he lied about the law, then got mouthy and dismissive when proven wrong.
I can't fault a 15 year old for getting excited that he won an argument with an adult in authority based on his having more factual knowledge about the law than the adult who's profession is LAW ENFORCEMENT, or for being a bit smarmy to the adult that started being dismissively smarmy FIRST.
When an adult acts like a child to a child, it's ridiculous to expect the child to respond like an adult. It would be great if it happened, but it's not reasonable to expect.

Meh, I don't think he's the Donald Trump of the Esplanade, more Danny Glover in Lethal Weapon "I'm too old for this shit" lazy.

That's bad enough, isn't it?
Does he really have to be Trump level awful to be properly called a dickhead? I don't think so.
I'm not saying he's a fascist, or the worst officer out there by far. Not being the worst is no excuse for being terrible, and it's a terrible officer who lies to kids, effectively dissolving any trust the children may have had for officers.
Lazy from law enforcement, especially lazy in their knowledge of the law they enforce, is terrible, and absolutely not worth the over $200000 per year he's paid.

Don't get me wrong, the kid could have been more restrained...but the kid is a kid, and so a childish celebration of his 'victory' is not unexpected or so out of line....it's childish. I expect adults in authority to be above that. I expect adults in authority to ignore childish taunts from children (which, to his credit, he mostly did). Mostly, I expect adults in authority to not be childish themselves, even to children. Apparently that's WAY too much to ask, even for >$200000 per year.

Yeah, as we're arguing degrees instead of opposition, I'm going to end my part now.

It's probably not his first rodeo.

Cop lovers disgust me. Go ahead and say "love all people". It's a safe bet that you don't truly. Cops are not heroes. They're only special if they do special things. Just signing up to be a cop doesn't make you anything but a person who chose a career path. Picking a shitty low paying career path doesn't entitle you to sympathy or respect. It means you are likely not very smart yet permitted to wield a lethal weapon and force your rudimentary interpretation of the law onto others.

Cop haters who don't particularly read the posts they quote confuse me.

When they're exposed to the median risk of workers in America then I'll agree with this.

But they aren't. It's their job to deal with the most dangerous people, the most dangerous situations. This cop in the video is a bit of a dick to these kids but maybe he's been watching them get in the way of other people and make a nuisance of themselves, who knows? Maybe he goes about talking to them a bit wrong, but to be fair I don't see an awful lot wrong here.

But if a fight breaks out nearby and someone pulls a gun everyone else there gets to run away. But that guy in the blue uniform is expected to get involved and sort it all out. That's not a median wage task.

When they are in the top 10 most dangerous jobs in America, you might have a point...but they aren't, and yet they are paid better than nearly every dangerous job on the list of dangerous jobs.
They CLAIM to have the most dangerous job in America, but it's simply not true. In fact, in an interaction with an officer, it's 10 times more likely that the officer will shoot the citizen than it is the other way around, so if danger is the pay rate metric, cops should pay US.

No, he saw NOTHING, someone who doesn't know they are allowed to ride there complained to him.

Again, if danger is the metric, cops are paid WAY too much, far more than the more dangerous jobs out there, and they also get benefits and many have special laws that allow them to do things normal citizens can't and offers protections that normal citizens don't have (like free lawyers, a blue wall, friends that will harass anyone making a charge against one, free FULL medical, vacations, bullet proof vests, Kevlar gloves, weapons, free vehicle(s), double pay-overtime, etc.).

No, it IS a median wage task, with approximately median risk, or less. If they don't want to do it for that money, don't take the job. It's NOT a job that's worth >$111 an hour + benefits. Animal care workers have a much more dangerous job, and they make <$20K per year. In fact, of the top ten most dangerous jobs, only airline pilot pays better than being an officer, which is NOT even in the top 10 most dangerous jobs.
http://www.bankrate.com/finance/personal-finance/10-most-dangerous-jobs-us-11.aspx