Man Arrested After Allegedly Throwing Beer Can At Cyclist From Car, Then Approaching With A Knife

[mahatmakanejeeves]

MAR 14, 2:51 PM

Man Arrested After Allegedly Throwing Beer Can At Cyclist From Car, Then Approaching With A Knife
Martin Austermuhle

A video posted this week of an incident in late February showed a local cyclist being pelted with a beer thrown from a car and later threatened with a knife by the beer-thrower. The incident resulted in an arrest.

Andrew Heining, an editor at The Washington Post, was riding home along East Basin Drive near the Jefferson Memorial. As a car passed him, a passenger in the car opened the right-side rear door and is shown tossing an open beer can in Heining’s direction. But before the car’s passenger could close his door, the apparent beer-thrower dropped his phone on the roadway, which Heining stopped to retrieve.

That was all caught by the Cycliq cameras that Heining had mounted on the front and back of his bike. The cameras also captured when the car drove back to retrieve the phone, and the person who had allegedly thrown the beer can pulled what appears to be a knife out of his pocket, though the blade wasn’t extended. The next scene from the video shows officers from U.S. Park Police and the Metropolitan Police Department patting the beer-thrower down.

A spokesperson with the Park Police confirmed an arrest was made, but had no immediate information on the person’s name or what they were being charged with.

Heining posted the edited video on Twitter this Wednesday, along with a pointed message:

PSA: Don't drink beer in a car.
But if you do, don't throw it at a #bikedc cyclist with @Cycliq cams front & rear.
But if you do, don't drop your phone.
But if you do, don't come back for it.
But if you do, don't pull out a knife, even just to show you don't intend to use it.

Link to tweet

As cameras have gotten smaller and cheaper, more cyclists have started mounting them on their bikes to catch aggressive drivers on tape. In 2011, cyclist Evan Wilder caught a driver—later found to be a former D.C. police officer—on camera running him down on Rhode Island Avenue NE. Three years later, Wilder was involved in another incident he caught on tape; he was again knocked off his bike by a driver, who proceeded to throw Wilder’s bike in the back of his pickup truck.

This story has been updated to reflect that the incident happened in February.