Bike shop cancels contract to sell bikes to Texas PD
AUSTIN, Texas Aug 9 2020— An Austin bike shop has canceled its contract to sell bikes to the Austin Police Department.
Mellow Johnny’s, which was founded by Lance Armstrong, said Wednesday the decision was made “in the context of the current evaluation of community policing.”
“We are not anti-police,” the bike shop wrote on Facebook. “We do believe our local police force will protect us from the very threats we are receiving right now.”
Under the contract with the city, signed in 2019, Mellow Johnny’s was to sell 40 Trek Police Bikes each year for five years. The bikes cost $1,495 each for a total purchase of $314,000.
Trek, the bike’s manufacturer, recently spoke out about the use of its bikes during the George Floyd protests.
“Recently we have seen photos and video of Trek bikes that have been used by police in ways that are abhorrent and vastly different from their intended use,” Trek said in a statement.
The company wrote that while “the past two weeks have turned the view of police on bikes from a community asset to a liability,” bikes could play a positive role by getting officers “out of cars and armored trucks and into the community where trust can be built.”
Mellow Johnny’s decision was publicized Tuesday in a since-deleted Facebook post by APD’s Christopher Carlisle, according to the Austin American-Statesman. He said some of the bike shop’s employees had complained to ownership about the department’s use of bikes in crowd management.
“The ownership of MJ’s has decided to listen to three employees and is sending APD an email canceling the four years left on our contract because three employees do not like police officers and did not like us in the store,” Carlisle wrote.
A 2019 article in POLICE Magazine described the use of bikes in crowd control, noting that multiple officers can create a “bike fence” by overlapping their tires. The formation “allows for a skirmish line to be created in a mobile field force situation,” the magazine wrote.
The response to Mellow Johnny’s Facebook post was mixed. A sample: Ally Robinson replied, “I appreciate a business that values it’s employees and morals over its bottom line,” while Mark Smith said, “Your attempt to placate the misguided few will be the downfall of your business.”
The bike shop concluded its statement by writing, “We wish this entire community peace and progress and togetherness at the conclusion of these trying times. And we intend to be a part of the discourse, struggle, and growth for Austin, as we have since we opened our doors in 2008.”
