Posted on 05/25/2023 11:50:57 AM PDT by xxqqzz
Mary and Michael are eager to talk to me, but Betty, their mother, is reluctant to let Michael speak with anyone.
He’s only 17 years old. “He’s my baby,” Betty says.
He’s a senior in high school. He should be planning to attend his prom and looking forward to walking the stage at his graduation in a few weeks, but instead, he and his family have spent the last week and a half living in turmoil.
(Excerpt) Read more at newsone.com ...
Why were his friends there? Did they rent bikes, too? Were they there to wave “good bye” to him? Were they all going to pile on one bike? Inquiring minds need to know.
Read the story, it tells you exactly what was going on.
Three, maybe four weeks after the “event”, this story about a story is still making the rounds. It still has legs.
Usually it’s in the late Summer when people become captivated by the mundane or right after Christmas.
He’s only 17 years old.
Well, to summarize for those who don’t want to go to the link, his story seems to be this:
Him and his friends prefer to ride a certain type of Citi Bike, a newer model e-bike that isn’t available everywhere. They go to the Bronx to find them, then ride them for the rest of the day around the city. So they did that and had four of these e-bikes that they brought with them. However, if they keep those bikes rented for more than 45 minutes they have to pay a higher rate. So they find a place to redock them before the 45 minutes hits, then rent them again.
This time, they didn’t immediately re-rent them, as they wanted to rest and get something to drink. And that’s when the lady rented one of “their” bikes.
Of course, once they redocked them, they no longer had any claim to those bikes at all, and certainly not after someone else paid to rent one.
I think they would have been better off not giving this interview and just letting the story fade away. They certainly don’t come off well.
And somehow the video ends up racist, viral and goes to news outlets crying racism?
The ploy didn’t work so now he’s innocent and all his friends are great citizens? This is racist against immigrants?
Spin away
Here is another excerpt from this long article. The mother gives an account of their side of what happened before the video started.
They were there for a few minutes when he said Sarah Jane Comrie approached their group. She initially asked one of Michael’s friends if she could take the bike he was resting on. He politely declined, informing her that they were going to be leaving shortly and using the bikes again.
She next approached a different boy in the group and asked him the same thing. That boy also politely declined.
Michael was still standing near his bike with his hands on the handlebars.
According to Michael, Sarah Jane Comrie asked him, “Can I please have this bike?”
Michael said he declined.
“No, I’m about to take it back out,” he told her.
Michael said Sarah Jane Comrie then said to him, “I’m pregnant. Can you help a pregnant woman out?”
Michael said he then told her, “I’m sorry ma’am. I’ve ridden this bike all the way from the Bronx, and I need this bike to go back home.”
Michael says that is when Sarah Jane Comrie moved closer to him and his bike, leaned over him, and scanned the QR code with her phone even as he had his hands on the handlebars.
She then pushed her way onto the bike and attempted to remove it from the docking station and take it.
It was 7:24 p.m., and that is when the boys began recording.
You can hear them in the video calling for someone to record Sarah Jane Comrie at the beginning of the footage.
“You know if someone is using something,” Mary interjected emphatically. “There are obvious physical cues to let you know when something is in use or someone is planning to use something.”
Michael insisted Sarah Jane Comrie knew he was planning to use the bike. He said she asked him and his friends to use theirs, and they all informed her they were using the bikes and would be leaving shortly.
All the boys rented bikes. They usually dock them after 45 minutes to keep them at a free or low rate.
The bike was docked, and thus available to the public.
The woman came to rent it out, the boy said no, it was his bike. He claims there were other bikes available, that they were all close to or touching the bikes, that she wanted one of their claimed bikes because they were newer.
He pushed it back into the docking station one minute after she rented it.
I think it is unlikely that a pregnant white woman walks up to five black teenagers claiming bikes and says she is going to take one.
Maybe they were further away than they say.
But you can’t claim bikes. If it isn’t on your account, it isn’t your bike. Two minutes while you wait for your friend to get organized, ok. Longer, no.
And keeping a bike all day, docking it at 45 minute increments, observes the letter of the rental, but not the spirit or intention.
If he's too ignorant to understand how the app works, he shouldn't be using it and certainly shouldn't be threatening people who do use it properly.
there are no “dibs” on e-bikes
and they know it
He could have gotten another bike at the same reduced rate....
So they were gaming the system and he didn’t think that he could have rented another bike at a reduced rate even it it wasn’t a “new bike”!
That's on them, not her. If they kept the bikes throughout their time of need, they wouldn't have found themselves in this predicament. For a few dollars of lost discount, they created a racist woman.
-PJ
I'm thinking these young gentlemen may not fully accept the logical validity of that statement.
Pretty much.
The mom says, “Why shouldn’t she (the nurse) get another bike?” Why couldn’t her son?
It seems like the 45-minute rule needs to be changed. They are effectively tying up the bike all day by doing what they are doing. I believe, the 45-minute rule is to encourage short trips and more widespread use of the bikes instead of daily “ownership”.
He knew how it worked to the minute and if the intent was to steal it, he would’ve ridden it away.
Oddly the low IQ kid gets how it all works-this is no different than if he picked something off a store shelf, left it at the register to get something else and she pays for it and walks out.
If preggo Biden voting Karen wasn’t the typical entitled leftist to whom the world shall bow this would never have happened.
And she could have respected the fact he had been using it as well.
I could honestly care less about this thing, my world is not going to change 1 ounce based on which of these 2 people weren’t being nice.
This shouldn’t even be on anyones radar, a non event that had zero impact on the world beyond the 2 people involved, and now thanks to social media how much cumulative mental energy has been wasted on this?
And we wonder why we haven’t been back to the moon in 50 years.
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