RE: “We can ensure that our department in no way is emphasizing focus on any particular group.”
This may be, on paper, true for traffic enforcement (except if you look at their profiling numbers for stops/consent searches)…but they do regularly “emphasize focus” on “particular groups” such as certain areas of town for drug busts/prostitution or at homeless camps with initiatives like “Operation Cleansweep.”

I was not making the point that it’s okay for bicyclists to go through red lights. I didn’t make that point in my city council letter either. Let’s just leave my opinion about that matter out of the discussion.

im not going to pretend that im an extremely traffic conscious cyclist, especially when im just busting around town on my bike to go off to do whatever in the city. if im on a ride strapped up in the attire of “serious cyclist” i follow the traffic laws and maintain a level of traffic awareness that most people my age and disposition would not normally take…let me put it this way when im in my spandex im a fucking bicycle saint and im usually in an arena where i have plenty of room where i dont have to compete with a car to maintain my space because i have space. but when im on guadalupe with agitated sorority girls and testoster-brodies barreling down a street at 50 miles an hour which has a 35 mile on hour speed limit in an suv or a F450 supercharger with a 6 inch lift which im sure they routinely pick pedestrians out of the grills of, i ride like an asshole and claim my space where i can get it. needless to say some times that involves running a red light here and there in order to maintain a decent enough speed or jumping a light right before it turns green to get a good run up so i dont get plowed from by an over zealous soccer mom in a car too big for her own damn good while talking on her cell phone about whatever inane bullshit…
anyways several months back at the end of september i was on my way to work rather early and was traveling down congress towards fifth…i came to the light at sixth and congress and noticed a couple of police officers on bicycles hanging out in front of the starbucks on 6th. so in order to avoid having to either run from these pedal pushing police which wouldn’t be hard or receive a nice fat fine from good ole johnny law i stopped at the light…light turns yellow for crossing traffic, i wait…light turns red for the crossing traffic, i begin to move, however assumption is always a great thing because at the moment the light turned red a semi decides to run said light and almost hits me. of course this invokes a rather angry and i think purely justified response from me, a loud shout of “HEY” and i pleasant display of my middle finger well needless to say i get pulled over and given a citation for not only “jumping the light” but for a nice little infraction they like to call “failure to stop at proper place” and the officer had the audacity to give me a stern warning that “[he] could have arrested me for insubordinate and profane behavior had his partner,” who had thankfully pursued the vehicle that had blatantly ran the light, “had decided to see if anyone had been offended by me [colorful display].”

Tom’s position is not anywhere as interesting as APD. He’s admitted his friend broke the law and doesn’t think that is just. That’s a point philosophically I would tend to agree with you more on, but can see his view point. The fact that the APD did this media blitz on this and have no institutional memory or are trying to cover that up is strange.

The impetus for my e-mail is that two of my friends were ticketed for going through a red light while riding their bicycles. These friends of mine are conscientious riders and were not likely taking any considerable risk for themselves nor others. My hope is that APD would focus on violations where there is a real and present safety risk to others rather than singling out bicyclists and expecting bicyclists to follow the letter of the law while motorists are free to speed and otherwise put others in real danger.

Hate to break it to you, but as a dedicated former cyclist who also drove (still drive, can’t bike), running red lights is a LOT worse than minor speeding. Not even in the same ballpark. There’s no such thing as a conscientious red-light runner, and speeding by motorists is no excuse. To say nothing of the fact that the same juvenile anarchists who think traffic laws don’t apply to them because of their choice of vehicle would likely break speed laws without a second thought if they were capable of doing so.