For the past 10 years, the city of St. Louis plays host to the annual Streetfighterz Ride of the Century (ROC) festival.
The 2012 edition of the ROC gathering took place last weekend with hundreds if not thousands of riders traveling to Missouri to attend the event.
At some point, the bikers hit the highway in large groups and the Missouri Highway Patrol got involved and started following the bikers, many of whom were recording the ride.
In the first clip, which was said to be shot by multiple people from many angles, we see two cop cars driving alongside a group of motorcyclists. At the 2:10 mark, some of the riders break off and cut through the grass to make a run for it as patrol cars had partially blocked the road in front.
From the footage, we see at least one police car coming in contact with a biker, who was able to keep going.
The YouTube user under the name “Sean Baker“, who uploaded the first video, says that the cops performed “dangerous acts on civilian motorcyclists”.
“Road blocks, brute force, ramming, and pit maneuver tactics were used by the police in order to try and stop civilians while on their motorcycles. (while not all of these tactics can be seen here, they were in fact used),” he said, adding that the bikers did not do anything illegal.
“This clip is a group of riders going down 370 in St. Louis for the beginning of the “2012 Ride of the Century” when police suddenly produced a roadblock and in turn induced panic among many of the motorcyclists causing the chaos and commotion that you see within the video. The riders were all clearly wearing their helmets, nobody was speeding, there were no stunters performing any tricks, and no laws or traffic violations were being broken to provoke the mayhem that law enforcement felt necessary,” Baker wrote on his YouTube channel.
Other recordings that have surfaced on the video-sharing website show a number of motorcyclists performing some really impressive but nevertheless, dangerous and illegal stunts including wheelies (in all sorts of positions…) and burnouts.
According to a news report from St. Louis Today, the Missouri Highway Patrol said that troopers arrested 13 motorcyclists and wrote more than 90 traffic tickets over the course of the weekend.
Story References: Jalopnik
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