Sometime in the spring of 2021, I was on my bicycle headed east on East Partition Street, between Court and South Fifth, after having just passed an HPD cruiser parked on Court with Officer Randy Strattman in the driver's seat. When I exited Partition, I took a left on to the one-way S. 5th to get to Union Street just as a police cruiser turned onto S. 5th from Union, headed in my direction. The cruiser pulled over in front of me, Officer Strattman got out of the vehicle, and he ordered me to get off my bicycle. He said that I was going to be ticketed for bicycling the wrong way on a one-way street, which I had been. He had essentially followed me, hoping that I would turn the wrong way on S. 5th so that he could issue me a ticket.
I asked Officer Strattman why he wasn't giving me a warning for biking the wrong way, noting that bicyclists in town can be seen doing it all the time. He was not moved. Officer Strattman then asked me if my bicycle was registered. I almost laughed, but he was serious. "Of course my bike isn't registered. I don't need it registered and there is no such thing," I responded. 5 minutes later he handed me two violation tickets -- One for bicycling the wrong way on a one-way street, and another for having an unregistered bicycle.
By that time, Officer Chris Filli had arrived on the scene in his police cruiser. He was there to berate me for being a nuisance to everyone in town, telling me that I had better watch it or I was going to get myself in deep trouble someday. He acted like a madman.
A few hours later, shots were fired on N. 5th street in front of the D & D deli, about 2 blocks from where I was issued the two idiotic tickets by two Hudson police officers.
The next day, I called HPD and asked someone where I could get my bicycle registered. I was told to "call City Hall, we don't know."
"Which department should I speak to?" I asked.
"Talk to the Clerk's Office," I was instructed.
And so I did. Tracey Delaney put me on hold for a minute, came back on and told me that, as far as she knew, "the Youth Department handles bicycle registration."
I bicycled over to the Youth Center on S. 3rd Street and knocked on the locked door. A young male opened the door, and I told him what I was there for. He told me to wait while he asked the Director of the department. A few minutes later he reappeared and said this to me: "We haven't done any registering of bicycles in like ten years. The Youth Department doesn't do that anymore."
I thanked him, went home and sent an email to Ed Moore and Tracey Delaney, informing them of what I had discovered.
I appeared in court a month later for my two tickets. I had a fun time telling the story about the bicycle registration nonsense to Judge Connor, and he immediately dismissed that ticket. I pled not guilty to the wrong way biking ticket and was given a trial date a month later.
Officer Strattman failed to show up to the court date, so the trial was postponed another month. Strattman showed up to that date, as did two uniformed officers who sat in the back row of the otherwise empty court. Talk about intimidation tactics. Needless to say, Judge Connor found me guilty of bicycling the wrong way on a one-way street and fined me somewhere around $125.
In August of 2021, Police Chief Ed Moore came in front of the Common Council to request an amendment to the City Code regarding bicycle registration. Chapter 78-2 stipulated that bicycle owners must get their bicycles registered with the Youth Department. It was repealed and it can no longer be found in the City Code.
About 9 months later, on May 31st of 2022, a beautiful spring day for a bike ride, I made my way down S. 3rd Street and out past the bays where 5 or 6 Hudson police officers were conducting a seat belt check detail, stopping every vehicle headed into town. I heard an officer call out to me as I passed by in the other lane. It was Officer Strattman, and I ignored his calls. When I returned a few minutes later, he called out my name again as I slowly approached. This time he stepped in front of me and my bicycle, raised his hand and ordered that I stop. I tried to continue around him, knowing that I had done nothing wrong and that he was just harassing me again, but he grabbed the basket on the front of my bike and forced me to stop. I told him to let go of my bicycle, but he refused.
I asked him what the problem was, and he said: "Why don't you have your bicycle registered?
"What on earth are you talking about?" I asked.
"It's in the Code -- you have to have your bicycle registered," he replied. "Wait here while I write you a ticket."
When he came back with the ticket, I asked him to show me on his phone where in the code it says anything about bicycle registration. He refused to do so, telling me that it was up to me to find it. He was so proud of himself.
My court date for my second unregistered bicycle ticket was on June 15th, and I appeared as instructed. I showed Judge Connor the ticket and said, "Remember when Strattman issued me one of these tickets last year and you dismissed it because it was meaningless?"
"No, I don't. I have a lot of people through here, Bill, I can't remember every ticket I've had to deal with," our city judge replied.
"Would you call this harassment, judge?" I asked.
With that, Judge Connor dismissed the ticket, signing his name to it, and told me I was free to go.
Since then, Officer Strattman has seen me riding my bicycle numerous times, but he has yet to pull me over again for failing to have my bike registered. And I still regularly see bicyclists headed the wrong way on one-way streets all over town. In fact, last year I saw a uniformed HPD officer on a bicycle turn off of South 5th Street on to Warren Street. Which is to say, he had been bicycling on S. 5th headed in the wrong direction.
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