A New York cyclist has criticised the “indifferent” behaviour of a police officer who struck him with his car in one of the city’s cycle lanes, before attempting to claim that the injured rider “came out of nowhere”.
The officer, who refused to apologise for the crash and repeatedly asked the cyclist for his ID, faces no more than five lost annual leave days if disciplined by the NYPD, despite cutting across the cycling infrastructure when the rider was on a green light.
Cyclist Andi Khoo-Miller was riding on the protected cycle lane on Schermerhorn Street in Brooklyn on 10 June at around 2pm when NYPD officer Michael McGinn, travelling in the same direction, turned right across the lane at a junction, where the segregated cycling infrastructure briefly gives way to paint.
McGinn struck Khoo-Miller with the front of his car, leaving him with back and leg pain. The cyclist was later taken to hospital, where he was prescribed painkillers and forced to miss a day of work, Streetsblog NYC reports.
“If I was going a full 15 miles per hour, it could have been so, so much worse,” Khoo-Miller told the blog, explaining that both he and the officer slowed down slightly just before the collision, “saving him from a serious injury”.
According to a police report written by another officer, footage of the crash shows that McGinn never came to a full stop before turning right and did not indicate before turning.
The NYPD’s Patrol Guide stipulates that officers must obey traffic laws “except under exceptional circumstances or extreme emergency”. Those conditions, the report stated, were not met by McGinn, whose sirens and lights were off at the time of the crash.
While it is not clear whether the officer will be disciplined for the crash, the NYPD’S disciplinary procedures state that he will face a maximum of five lost annual leave days for failing to indicate before turning at a junction.
Beyond the crash itself, Khoo-Miller criticised the officer’s attitude, claiming he was “indifferent” to the danger he posed to a vulnerable road user.
The cyclist claimed McGinn told him that he “came out of nowhere”, before repeatedly asking Khoo-Miller to show his ID. The officer also couldn’t understand why Khoo-Miller wanted another member of the NYPD to attend the scene and take his report, the cyclist says.
“He seemed like he didn’t give a shit,” Khoo-Miller said. “I asked him to apologise and he said, ‘I would, but I don’t like your attitude’.”
Speaking to McGinn’s lieutenant, who eventually drove to the scene, the cyclist told him: “Your officer said I came out of nowhere”.
“Yeah, they always say that,” the lieutenant replied, according to Khoo-Miller.
The cyclist also told Streetsblog NYC that he frequently files complaints about illegal parking by police officers in the area, including on cycle lanes, but says “they just close them out”.
In 2025, a Brookyln councillor found 457 illegally parked cars every day on key routes in the area, 60 per cent of which had NYPD placards or memorabilia on their dashboards.
Last week’s incident isn’t the first time, unsurprisingly, that cyclists and NYPD officers have butted heads in New York in recent years.
In May 2025, we reported that a New York cyclist filed a lawsuit against the city’s police department, accusing the force of getting the law wrong when issuing fines to cyclists who ride through red lights.
The lawsuit came after New York’s cycling community hit back at plans to issue criminal court summons, rather than regular traffic tickets, for cyclists who ride through red lights.
Cyclist Oliver Casey Esparza filed the action with the aim of “ensuring the NYPD finally follows the law as it has been written for years, and stops unlawfully detaining and prosecuting cyclists when they’ve done nothing wrong”.
1 thought on ““He didn’t give a s**t”: New York police officer drives into bike lane and hits cyclist… before claiming rider “came out of nowhere””
This is disgraceful. If this had been a UK Police officer he’d be prosecuted and disciplined; quite possibly losing his job.