Seems like the a St.Louis version of Northern London. Be very afraid if you are suspected of affluence. Flack jackets should be required by law.

Odd, it says the the victims were apparently picked out at random, but one suspects (knows) that it was a black on white "hate" crime.

Stuff like this would never get past the human rights council of Portland. Of course, the new immigrants from America's suburbs are in the process of albinizing the city so that they may never have to deal with such civil rights violations.

Cheech Ramirez? Sounds like it could be related to race rather than mode of transportation.

The mayor's answer to citizens on bikes being beaten by a gang of thugs is to send out more citizens on bikes?

What could possibly go wrong?

Flash mobs. Underage black youth organized via twitter and other social networking on smart phones in order to commit crime and assault white people.

The only reasonable way to tamper down on this is to treat minors who engage in these activities the same way Planned Parenthood treats "mature minors" when it comes to abortion and no parental notification.

All of those participating in flash mobs know full aware that the under the current rules, they are still treated as juvies. Throw them in a crowd lowering thus lowering their intelligence to that of a 5 year old retard and you have a deadly recipe for mob violence.

Flash mobs. Underage black youth organized via twitter and other social networking on smart phones in order to commit crime and assault white people.

I could be wrong, but I think "flash mobs" involve people of many different races. It's not a "black thing" at all.

I saw a piece on the news the other day that mixed in a white midwest mall rock concert flashmob. However, nationally from Philly to St. Louis and a lot of points in between its straight up black attacks on whites.

There is much footage of these attacks and invariably the attackers are described a "youths." That is true as far as it goes, but hey, as Richard Pryor once said, Who you gonna believe? Me or your lying eyes?

So far, lyin' eyes is winning.

A "Flash" event is irrespective of race as such. A couple of college/ high school theater/dance/ music students will text or twitter their friends about an event at a given time and place. A "flash" event of pillow,snowball,dance, music or drama will take place.
By the very nature of who their friends and their friends are, the interest of the event is maintained. Parents, relatives in the next state and work numbers are not included.

Now if you want to storm a 7-11, or I'm bored "lets get whitey!" The same process is used, contacting your like minded friends. The harmless ones are posted on youtube for people to share and laugh at. The others are captured by surveillance cameras and reported as crime news.
Some "Underage black youth" are no longer interested in singing in harmony, break dancing and chants!

Incidents of this sort -- racially motivated or based upon some other perceived inequity -- will continue until everyone has a bicycle, is pleased with the bicycle s/he has, and does not covet a neighbor's bicycle.

Portland again has an opportunity to lead the nation in providing bikes for everyone who desires one. Distribution can be managed by the Office of Equity, which has a public hearing scheduled for tomorrow (Wed) evening:
http://blog.oregonlive.com/portlandcityhall/2011/08/portlands_office_of_equity_tak.html

Taxpayers and, perhaps, other residents will be buoyed by the tangible results of such a program.

Posters above are right that flash mobs have not historically consisted mainly of blacks and/or had a criminal element. Flash mobs originated with frivolity but have evolved into mob criminality among predominantly Black minors.

I can Google well over a dozen flash mob incidents from 2011 and 2010 where the flash mob was predominantly Black with the intent of the flash mob to rob and/or physically assault White people at such events such as state fairs. You cannot, in the same time frame, cite an equal number involving predominantly White, Latino, or Asian youth.

As for the UK riots we just witnessed, sure I saw a few White trash out rampaging, but what I saw was mostly Black youth.

So yes it is a "black thing," but I could just as easily refer to it as the Hope and Change that Obama promised us in 2008. Yet, we did not expect it to pan out and manifest in this manner.

This same type assualt was tried on me right here in stump town around the Lloyd Center about 20 years ago, while I biked home from work. Fortunately, I was able to out pedal the gang of young teens running rampant. Fortunately, they didn't seem to be sporting guns either.

In another instance, I also had a female co worker a couple of years later in and around Lloyd Center have her car surrounded at about dusk (after most folks had already gone home) by a similar gang of teens. She kept nudging her car foward until they backed off.

Portland generally speaking provides free light rail transportation for gang bangers, and now it's thinking of providing cheap bike service to gang bangers too. Heck, Mayor Adams offers to buy back their "hot" guns with no questions asked, and then the city melts the evidence for them.

Hummm. I am just participated in my first flash mob, and I am over 50, white, female. We were at MLK (Union) and Killingsworth. Over 70 of us....it lasted less than 4 minutes. Blocking traffic.
Only two people were rude. Yelling obnoxiously and giving us the finger. Both were 20 something white males on bikes.

I am sure those young riders didn't mean to attract hate with their attitude of pernicious superiority. I'll feel real bad when they get a whole beat.

Time to start packin'

Not directly on topic, but yesterday afternoon I was driving downtown on SW Alder heading east toward the Morrison bridge. A bike messenger wearing headphones with no helmet blew a stop sign and crossed in front of me. I hit the brakes hard and honked. He casually raised his right hand to give me the finger while continuing through.

Not saying there's ever a basis for mob violence against random victims, but it really hit my adrenaline button. I'm driving defensively and call someone on a potentially life threatening mistake and the response is to give me the finger? WTF?

Although I can't speak for Jack, I doubt that he hates bikes. How can you hate a bike? It's an inanimate object. If Jack is anything like me, he probably has a profound dislike of a-holes who get on bikes and think that all traffic and pedestrian laws are suspended as they peddle their merry way against traffic, on sidewalks and through crosswalks. A law-abiding bicycle rider with a pleasant attitude is a GOOD thing. An a-hole on a bike is a BAD thing, and, unfortunately, there seem to be plenty of them, or at least enough of them to give the rest a black eye. In all fairness, I understand that's it's difficult to ride a bike in an automobile-oriented world, but them's the breaks. Cars aren't going away despite full denial by the bike lobbyists. The best we can hope for is peaceful coexistence, and both bicyclists and auto drivers need to develop positive attitudes about transporting themselves on crowded streets.

Ahh, the ol' "scofflaw bicycling is the problem" mantra, and yet it's the ubiquitous illegal car driving that maims and injures innocent people - whether on the road or the sidewalk.

http://www.oregonlive.com/news/index.ssf/2011/08/truck_driver_cited_after_hitti.html

http://www.oregonlive.com/portland/index.ssf/2011/08/founder_of_zupans_markets_crit.html

Let's ALL road users follow ALL the laws... every single one... full and complete stop every single time, every single speed limit, signalling every single turn, etc. etc.

Well, scofflaw bicycling IS the problem. So is scofflaw automobile driving. In fact, if everyone behaved as you suggested and obeyed all laws, there would be many fewer problems and fewer deaths. I know I do, which is why it bugs me equally when I see bad drivers or bad cyclists. So I guess we're in agreement, eh?

"“They weren’t really interested in robbing me. It just seemed like they wanted to beat me up,” says assault victim Cheech Ramirez."

There you go. Bicycling is now Up in Smoke, too.