Brut documentary: Inside NYC's bike life culture

Brut America

Riding a dirt bike or a 4-wheeler is illegal in New York City. But some ATV riders and bikers say they feel safer riding than facing the NYPD in a car...    Watch Brut filmmaker Léo Hamelin's latest documentary inside NYC's bike life culture.

Transcript

00:00It's just like when you ride, it feels like, it's like time, your time, you know, it's

00:15just your time, you're in your bike and you just enjoy it.

00:18Hold on, hold on, hold on.

00:22You feel no worries, you just feel free, you gotta get on the feeling, you know.

00:30When you ride with 50, 100 other people feeling the same way as you, just enjoying yourself,

00:35you know, it's just a great lifestyle.

00:41Nothing but happiness, all you think about is just fun.

00:45Bikers, sometimes hundreds of them, go around the boroughs of New York City almost every

01:04day and night.

01:05Their motto is no one's left behind.

01:08For Brute, I'm taking you into the bike life culture of New York City.

01:12Their hobby is mostly illegal and the NYPD is never fun.

01:19While we're here, police could come at any second, so I gotta make sure my bike is looking

01:22that way.

01:23Because it could be in a split second, because there's an entrance over there, entrance over

01:28there where we came in through, so they could just, we can't see them until they're right

01:32here.

01:33It would be too late for me to turn my bike back around.

01:34We're not just some guys that just riding and acting crazy in the street, like, this

01:39is what we love.

01:40This is a hobby for us, you know what I'm saying, like, you know, this is our peace

01:43of mind, you know what I mean?

01:45Everybody got a hobby, man.

01:46Our hobby's just a little dangerous, and it's illegal on top of that.

01:50I had my fair share of chases with the police officers, so I'm a little in the game now,

01:58I'm in tune, you know, so.

02:00That's part of the...

02:02Yeah, it's just all part of the sport, part of the sport.

02:05When you're on that bike, it's like when you're on a boat on the ocean.

02:10You just hear the waves.

02:11You hear nothing.

02:12It's like a peace of mind.

02:40When I'm on the bike, I feel way more safe than anything.

02:43Yo, I'm glad you said that.

02:46I get in the car, I'm like this, two and ten, two and ten, sit up straight.

02:51I feel the same way.

02:52And I don't even care about the police.

02:53Now, when I'm in the car, it's like, god damn.

02:55Sir, what's up, sir?

03:00You know what I'm saying?

03:01On the bike, you feel way more in control.

03:05In control.

03:06She don't look good yet.

03:08She look good.

03:09I'm talking about the candy operation.

03:15How'd you learn all that stuff?

03:17Just...

03:18Um...

03:19I taught myself.

03:22I got a few good friends that taught me a lot of things, too, as well.

03:30Yeah, bikes always keep you out of trouble.

03:33Yeah, bikes always keep you out of trouble, because I'm not a jailbird.

03:37I got locked up a few times, but it's just been for petty things, you know what I'm saying?

03:42But it definitely will, you know, because it's like, I don't have time to be out on the street

03:53or hanging on a block to start a beef with any of you guys, you know what I'm saying?

03:59I'm trying to make sure my bike is ready, because we got a ride tomorrow.

04:03You know what I'm saying?

04:04It's different energies, you know?

04:06When you just wake up and you don't have nothing to do, that's why, you know,

04:09the next thing you know, they see a gun or this or they doing real crazy things

04:15that they shouldn't be doing that will really change their life, you know?

04:33Mmm.

04:44Yo, first of all, don't start crying.

04:46I didn't wait for you for... I never waited for you. Never.

04:50This is what you're telling me. Never.

04:52My five times don't count to your one million.

04:57He said my five times don't count to your million.

05:00All right, bro.

05:02It's off the charts.

05:16If they give us somewhere to ride, we wouldn't have to ride in the street.

05:19But the government don't want to give us nowhere to ride.

05:22So where we gonna go?

05:24And this is our culture, we ride on the street.

05:32Yeah.

05:58Uh-huh, uh-huh.

06:01Yeah.

06:17Put your hands behind your back.

06:19Behind your back.

06:21Put your hands behind your back.

06:23Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

06:26Stop, stop, stop, stop.

06:29I just calmed him down. I just calmed him down.

06:31I just calmed him down.

06:33I just calmed him down.

06:35I just calmed him down.

06:37Look at his feet. Look at his feet.

06:39Look at his feet.

06:43Yo, what you moving?

06:50It was just a bad day. It was just like...

06:54You know? It was just a bad day.

06:56Hold on, hold on. Why you got your knee on the fence?

06:58Why you got your knee on the fence?

07:00Look at his knee. Look at his knee.

07:02Look at his knee. Look at his knee.

07:04Look at his knee. Look at his knee.

07:06Look at his knee. Look at his knee.

07:08Look at his knee. Look at his knee.

07:13We're hearing from a man who says an NYPD officer put a knee on his neck.

07:17Video appears to show an officer with his knee on a man's neck during an arrest.

07:22That man tells News 12's Anthony Carlo he did not want to suffer a fate like George Floyd's.

07:28All I could see is the officer's shit.

07:31Like, it was just dark. I couldn't see nothing.

07:33I was just pinned. I couldn't do nothing.

07:35So, I just heard screaming.

07:37You know?

07:39And then, like I said, when I got out of jail the next morning,

07:42and I seen the video, you know?

07:44All my friends, they showed me the video.

07:46And then that's when I called Ole.

07:50It was obviously, obviously shocking.

07:53Like, horrific, just in the sense that

07:55it so clearly mirrored exactly what we had just seen in George Floyd.

07:58It wasn't the police brutality of it all that shocked me.

08:01I'm accustomed to that.

08:02Our clients often have been beat by the police.

08:04They often tell us that they were violently arrested.

08:06But it was just, I guess, the audacity of it.

08:08That they knew all these people were screaming.

08:10Like, screaming.

08:12Telling them specifically, your knee is on his neck.

08:14Your knee is on his neck. Repeatedly.

08:16They know what just happened. They think his life.

08:18They think he's going to lose his life.

08:20And despite that, they know.

08:22They know they're being recorded.

08:25It speaks to the boldness of how they carry on.

08:28Even at this point, the DA's office have never said

08:30that they shouldn't have conducted the arrest like that.

08:32They didn't say, oh, it was a mistake.

08:34This officer behaved poorly.

08:36No, at no point have they condemned the behavior.

08:38And I think that's important.

08:40This is routine.

08:42You know, the George Floyd trial and the whole George Floyd case

08:44and what happened to George Floyd has been treated like

08:46it's this aberration, like it's this anomaly.

08:48And it's not. And that's what's important.

08:50As horrific as we think that is,

08:52there are so many, so many people around this country

08:54who have experienced that, and we don't hear that story.

08:56Sir Carlisle Arnold and his lawyer

08:58fought for the officers involved

09:00to be fired and face criminal charges.

09:02In April 2021,

09:04the Queen's DA decided not to prosecute them

09:06claiming there's insufficient evidence

09:08of an unlawful method of restraint being used.

09:10Charges against Sir Carlisle were dropped

09:12and he filed a civil lawsuit

09:14against the police department.

09:18How did it feel to see

09:20when they were stepping on his neck?

09:22Like,

09:24can't do nothing.

09:26You know, like hopeless.

09:28You know what I'm saying? There's nothing you can do.

09:30You just sit there and just scrape out the cop,

09:32get your knee off my friend's neck!

09:34There's nothing you can do.

09:36Right after George Floyd.

09:38The knee on the neck!

09:40Didn't we just march for this?

09:42That shows you the disconnect.

09:44It don't mean nothing.

09:46I'm going to go f*** George Floyd.

09:48You know, when I can do something wrong,

09:51I got to go to jail.

09:53When they do something wrong,

09:55they ain't got to go to jail,

09:57even though it's illegal now.

09:59That's a whole crime.

10:01He don't got to go to jail,

10:03but I got to go to jail.

10:05What makes him different?

10:07Oh, he's a cop.

10:09That's what it is.

10:11He know the inside people.

10:13Oh, yeah, yo, bro.

10:15I didn't mean it.

10:17All right, man.

10:19You had a war.

10:21Right.

10:23I was just riding a bike.

10:25I'm not trained.

10:27I wasn't trying to kill you.

10:29You had your knee in my neck.

10:31Crazy as hell.

10:33I'm telling you, police is crazy as hell.

10:35Then they tried to call me a gang member.

10:37I said, what?

10:39A gang member?

10:41What the f*** are you talking about?

10:43Because my helmet was red and black.

10:45Look, I ride a blue bike all the time, too.

10:48So what does that tell you?

10:50I guess I'm blood and crip.

10:52F*** it, I'm just blood and crip.

10:54These people f***ing killed me, man.

10:56I'm pretty sure there's some gangbangers out there,

10:58but you didn't meet him.

11:00I ain't got nothing to do with that.

11:04Thank God I got some good friends, boy.

11:14I almost killed you yesterday.

11:16When you turned.

11:18I clipped you?

11:20Almost.

11:22Right in front of you?

11:24Yeah.

11:26Thank God.

11:28These bikes really gave me a different perspective.

11:30I thought it was just riding.

11:32I don't even want to sell drugs no more.

11:34I've got three customers that I make enough.

11:40I just want to ride like I save what I make

11:42for those customers.

11:44Nobody for no money, no nothing.

11:46I got introduced to the right people,

11:48so I got taught the right culture.

12:14They got nothing better to do

12:16but chase us

12:18with a thousand other crimes outside.

12:20As you saw

12:22what they did,

12:24they just want to see

12:26if they can hit one of us,

12:28knock us down,

12:30get us out of here,

12:32get us out of here,

12:34get us out of here,

12:36get us out of here,

12:38get us out of here,

12:40get us out of here,

12:43get us out of here,

12:45get us out of here,

12:47get us out of here.

12:49They follow you

12:51but they don't stop you.

12:53If they got the chance to, yeah.

12:55Tonight we didn't get

12:57into one of those predicaments.

12:59In the Bronx and Harlem,

13:01they really don't f*** around like that.

13:03But in Queens and Brooklyn,

13:05they really f*** around to chase me

13:07a little bit more real out there.

13:09My case is closed.

13:11It don't matter when you don't die.

13:13Not to say it like that.

13:15No, to say it like that,

13:17it don't matter when you don't die.

13:19It is what it is.

13:21It's not a big deal. I didn't die.

13:23Life continues.

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