by Kevin Cody
Richard Roe is mad as hell at rude, young e-bikers. Twice, in recent weeks, the 83-year-old Hermosa Beach resident has been harassed by packs of teenage e-bikers as he bicycled home from American Junkie, on Pier Plaza, where he plays ping pong most afternoons.
“I have a pacemaker. I have two knee replacements. But I also grew up in the South Bronx, in the Irish neighborhood. The girls in my neighborhood carried baseball bats with railroad spikes packed in the end. They would tear these e-bike teens apart,” Roe said.
After college and before becoming a banker, Roe worked two years as the recreation director at the National Training School for Boys, in Maryland.
“There were 180 blacks from D.C. and 180 white hillbillies from the South. The guy who had the job before me got killed. Recidivism was 85 percent, and the other 15 percent hadn’t gone to court yet,” Roe said. Charlie Manson attended the National Training School for Boys.
“I know how to talk to punks,” Roe said.
Roe has taken it upon himself to help “prevent e-bike accidents” by planting himself on The Strand wall, at 14th Street, in front of his house, where a flashing red light signals bicyclists to dismount.
If they don’t, he yells at them.
“I tell them slow down, what’s your hurry, you’ll run over a kid,” Roe said.
Since taking a soccer ball to the head from an e-biker, he has carried mace for protection.
Saturday evening, over the Memorial Day Weekend, he was at his customary stoop on The Strand wall, when an e-biker sped through the red light.
“I barked at him, ‘What’s your hurry, get off your bike.’ He yelled back M-F and and the N word. A white kid who pretends he’s from the ghetto,” Roe said dismissively.
“I yelled back ‘Heh big man, come back here.’ Now I was standing in the middle of The Strand. He made a u-turn, and comes back at me going 20 miles an hour. I’m not moving. When he’s about to hit me, he pops a wheelie like he thinks he’s Evel Knievel. He kept swinging the front wheel at me, feet from my face.
“I told him, ‘You keep this up and I’ll have a surprise for you.’”
“He kept swearing at me so I fired a warning shot past his left ear. Downwind, so it wouldn’t get in his eyes.”
“He yelled, ‘M-F, are you macing me?’ I told him if he kept harassing me, I might.’ He left.”
A few minutes later Roe saw the e-biker walking his e-bike toward him, accompanied by a Hermosa Beach police officer.
According to a Hermosa Beach Police incident report released Wednesday evening, the e-biker was a 25-year-old, San Francisco resident.
The police report says the e-biker stopped to ask Roe why he was yelled at, “and that’s when Roe pulled out a pepper spray canister and sprayed [the e-biker ] in the right eye. “(The e-biker’s name is redacted in the police report.)
According to Roe, the officer told him the e-biker had made a felony assault complaint against him.
If it’s true, he would be cuffed, and would spend the long holiday weekend in jail, Roe said the officer told him.
Several other officers arrived.
Roe said he asked where they were when he needed them.
Then a fire engine arrived. The officer questioning him said the fire fighters were there to treat the e-biker.
“Do you think he’d be here if I sprayed him in the eyes?” Roe said he told the officer.
“The kid was standing in Noble Park, on the grass, smirking. If I could have, I’d have wrung his neck.” Roe said.
“I went loco. I told the cop to talk to the Beach House security guard. He saw the whole thing. Check the hotel video cameras.”
“I told them I wanted to file an elder abuse complaint. They said it wasn’t elder abuse because he didn’t hit me. I said, ‘He damn near ran me over, twice. He threatened me verbally. He did wheelies in my face. Did he have to beat me up for me to file a complaint?’
“They told me they were just doing their jobs,” he said the officers told him.
After the officers conferred with one another, according to Roe, they said “You’re okay. He’s not going to press charges against you.”
“You’re kidding me. That scumbag threatened me with an e-bike and he’s not pressing charges,” Roe said he told the officers.
In recounting the evening, Roe noted that scumbag is the worst insult New Yorkers have for a scumbag.
“That’s what New Yorkers call Trump. He’s from Queens,’ Roe said. ER
