Two-Stroke + Cop – Riding Experience = Viral Video Gold

“It’s just a dirtbike and I only have to take it a couple blocks. What could possibly go wrong?”

Two-stroke dirtbikes can be deceptively powerful and are considered markedly harder to control than their four-stroke counterparts. The punchy delivery can be startling if you aren’t ready for it — as one now-internet-famous New York police officer recently discovered…the hard way.

Who, What, When, & Where

This glorious clip was captured on Sunday evening at 5:40PM in New York City — Harlem to be specific — at Lenox Ave and 135^th St. . When the video begins, one Officer Brian Hinton, is already sitting atop a full-size dirtbike, which, as the exhaust’s appearance and note quickly reveals, is of the good ‘ol fashion, oil burnin’, smokin’ thumper, two-stroker variety.

Hinton can be seen revving the MXer (always a wise move on a two-stroke) before abruptly opening the throttle, resulting in the front-wheel quickly lofting off the ground. The cop chops the throttle but he’s already careening into a four-way intersection, against the red-light mind you. After narrowly missing a Prius entering said intersection — and at no point ever attempting to activate either the front or rear brake — Hinton again cracks the throttle open far too quickly, clearing not having learned his lesson from half-a-second-ago.

#FAIL

In an all-too-common turn of events when novice riders overconfidently pilot two-strokes, Hinton accidentally causes another wheelie, though the second time his balance is off and his luck ran out. As a sudden surge of power is sent to the rear-wheel, the machine flies out from underneath the NYPD officer and eventually slams into a late-model Cadillac that’d been waiting at the light (and who’s driver now has one hell of a story).

Fortunately, despite taking one seriously painful-looking — and humongously embarrassing —slam, Hinton wastes no time getting to his feet in what we can only imagine is a futile effort to play off what is now a fail of epic/viral proportions. The second half of the video is comprised of the nearby public’s reaction to officer McCantwheelie’s comedic crash, which can best be summed up as “less-than-sympathetic”.

According to local media, Hinton only suffered minor injuries to his shoulder, which was treated at Mount Sinai St. Luke’s Hospital before the officer was released. Unsurprisingly, an internal investigation has been opened into the incident.

So…WTF?

Supposedly the whole situation began when police received a report of approximately 50 riders illegally ripping through the streets of Harlem. When police responded, one suspect who was reportedly riding wrecklessly, evaded capture on a certain now infamous two-stroke, before ditching the bike in question, and hopping on the back of a friend’s bike to make their ultimately successful escape. NYPD then recovered the bike a short time later at or near 135th and Lenox, leading to the large gathering of police that can be seen at the start of the video.

For whatever reason, the local precinct 32 either doesn’t have a trailer, or didn’t have one available (or more likely didn’t want to wait for one) as when it came time to impound the two-wheeler, it was decided that an officer would simply ride it back to the precinct. Strangely enough, this is standard operating procedure for this situation — at least according to the NYPD’s Patrol Guide — though one would think that they’d pick someone who, ya know, is able to operate a motorcycle?

Framing The Situation

When we first saw this video, we immediately had sooooo many questions. How did this happen? Why was he even on the bike in the first place? Etc. We do have the answer to these questions, however it helps to have a bit of background info to really grasp the full scope of the story (and its ridiculousness).

Unlike in the UK where motorcycles are commonly used in the commission of other crimes like purse or phone snatchings and other robberies and whatnot, in the US, most urban motorcycle crime is the actual riding itself. In major cities across the US, there’s been a marked rise in illegal motorcycle riding through urban areas, typically on non-road-legal dirtbikes and ATVs. The culture and phenomena have been pretty thoroughly documented, with everything from popular documentary films, to the high-profile arrest of Philadelphia rapper, Meek Mill for “recklessly” piloting a dirtbike (and doing wheelies).

Striking Back

In response to the influx of urban MX activity, a myriad of major cities have cracked down on the crime via tasks forces and other tactical measures. Many of the bikes in questions are of “questionable origin” too, so law enforcement’s motivation stems from a bevy of areas, including complaints from the community. New York City has been particularly vigilant when it comes to this type of riding, with several boroughs dedicating surprising amounts of time and money to curb the 12 O’clock Boys-style shenanigans.

Back in 2016 the NYPD made a spectacle of the crushing and destruction of a vast number of dirtbikes and ATV’s seized by police after being used illegally — Facebook Live Streaming the entire process. New York’s Finest has also made public displays of seizures and other crackdowns, seemingly in an effort to deter future offenders while also assumably providing a bit of a show of force.

A System That Needs Improvement

While we shouldn’t have to explain to you exactly why the whole having a random cop ride it back to the station technique is questionable at best, it’s worth pointing out that this is not an isolated incident. In fact, it was only a few weeks ago that another video surfaced of an NYPD officer riding a confiscated bike back to a precinct — in this case a little e-bike in the Bronx — when he loses control of the pint-sized scoot and crashes, hard.

Based on [the collection of photos the 32^nd precinct has posted to its Twitter](https://twitter.com/search?f=tweets&vertical=default&q=dirt bike from

&src=typd&lang=en), it’s pretty clear that seizing MXers is a routine part of the job, which would suggest that perhaps a more efficient system needs to be put into place in order to both protect the innocent bikes (and the cops from themselves too apparently).

The entire unedited version of the footage can be watched on Liveleak.