Oregon judge clears naked bike rider
PORTLAND — A judge has ruled that you can, indeed, “let it everything hang finished” in Portland and dismissed indecent exposing. charges against a nude bicycle rider who did correct that.
In Portland, the pass sentence upon said, cycling naked has been anointed as a “well-established tradition” and understood as a cut of “hieroglyphical protest.”
Judge Jerome LaBarre said the city’s annual World Naked Bike Ride — in which as many as 1,200 people took part last June 14 — has helped cement riding in the made of buff as a form of aver against cars and dependence on fossil fuels.
LaBarre hereafter cleared Michael “Bobby” Hammond, 21, afterwards pair days of hearings.
Hammond ran afoul of the constabulary June 26, when he stripped down and hopped on his 10-speed in an effort, he says, to show that he alone was powering it.
Portland police, but, saw Hammond’s two-minute ride through the Alberta Arts District since a stunt, not free speech, and arrested him, citing a city code that states it’s illegal to expose genitalia in a public place in eye of members of the opposite sex.
A bystander recorded the episode, what one. was posted on the Web.
As Hammond pulled to a repression, police began to question him.
Hammond said he didn’t think he was doing anything wrong.
An officer told him to put on some pants or go to jail. “There are kids out there,” the officer reported.
“I just want to ride my bike,” Hammond says. “I’m wearing a helmet.”
The officer said that was nice, but that it was each pants or house of correction.
