Driven to Civil Disobedience: Motorcyclist Arrested at Downtown Bend Protest Tells His Side of the Story

“When I saw what happened to Alex Pretti… I knew that could’ve been me,” said Kurt Greenwood, a motorcyclist and independent mechanic in Bend. “If what went down in Minnesota was happening in my town, I would’ve been out there doing the exact same thing.”

Greenwood, a U.S. Army veteran who served in Afghanistan, feels a strong sense of solidarity with Pretti, an intensive care nurse at a U.S. Department of Veterans’ Affairs hospital who was shot and killed by federal immigration agents in Minneapolis on Jan. 24.

“Pretti worked every day to help veterans, and that’s how the U.S. government repays him?” Greenwood asked, rhetorically and scornfully, in an interview with the Source.

Initially, he wanted to attend a Jan. 30 protest while carrying a firearm, visibly displaying his 2nd Amendment rights as a tribute to Pretti, who was lawfully carrying a handgun when he was killed. Though Pretti’s actions were protected under Minnesota law, Trump administration officials like Stephen Miller and Kash Patel have attempted to use the fact that Pretti was armed to justify his extrajudicial killing.

But Greenwood decided that an open-carry protest might send the wrong message to his fellow community members. Instead, he would express himself the way he knew best: through the roar of an engine.

An avid biker, he doesn’t need much motivation to take two wheels around town. But this time, he strapped a “F*ck Trump” flag to one of his motorcycles and decided to make a statement via his vehicle.

Pretti’s death at the hands of the federal government served as a blood-red cherry on top of what Greenwood called the existing “hellscape political climate,” driving him to drive his motorbike to downtown Bend to attend a Jan. 31 Peace Corner protest. The notion that police might disapprove of his actions didn’t bother him at the time; after all, he was showing up as a motorized form of “civil disobedience,” he said.

One day earlier, Greenwood had attended a protest at the same intersection, NW Wall Sreet and NW Newport Avenue, blasting “Streets of Minneapolis,” a contemporary protest anthem by Bruce Springsteen, for throngs of appreciative protestors. Returning on Jan. 31, his goal was to “keep hyping the crowd up,” he said.

Cell phone footage from the event, verified by the Source, shows Greenwood slowly circling and coasting around the intersection on his bike, honking his horn, before peeling away through downtown. While his slow loops partially obstructed the roadway, cars still passed through, albeit at a more staggered rate.

The Bend Police Department has claimed, with local news outlets reporting similarly, that Greenwood was “endangering protesters” by doing laps in the intersection. However, video footage shows Greenwood driving slowly, with the crowd aware of and jubilantly reacting to his presence; the likelihood of injury to pedestrians under these circumstances appears slim.

Greenwood said he repeated this “loop” process “three to five times” before Bend PD intervened.

“Officers attempted to stop the motorcycle away from the crowd, but the driver drove away at high speeds eastbound on Franklin Avenue. Officers did not pursue the motorcycle through the busy area per Department policy,” reads a Bend PD statement.

Greenwood said he heard “a single chirp” from the police siren, but did not realize he was being pulled over, as the noise was not sustained. Admitting to driving without rearview mirrors, he said he could not see the police car’s flashing lights: “They say I eluded arrest, but I wasn’t aware they wanted me to pull over.”

Video footage corroborates Greenwood’s claim that the siren only chirped once.

“After Mr. Greenwood eluded our officers, he returned to the area,” Bend PD spokesperson Sheila Miller told the Source. “Two officers approached him on foot while he was in traffic on Wall Street, took hold of his arms and directed him to get off his motorcycle… He did not initially comply, and had previously eluded our officers. Multiple officers removed him from his bike using force in order to place him under arrest.” A police statement also accuses Greenwood of resisting arrest while being detained on the ground.

Greenwood tells it differently, saying that he was sitting in motionless downtown traffic when officers “tackled” him, damaging his bike and hurting his arm, though not severely enough to require immediate medical attention. Bend PD stated that Greenwood “sustained no injuries during the arrest.”

The mechanic spent the weekend in Deschutes County Jail before being released on his own recognizance. He currently faces three criminal charges: Felony Fleeing or Attempting to Elude a Police Officer, Reckless Driving and Disorderly Conduct. As of publication, the Deschutes County District Attorney has not elected to file the Resisting Arrest charge set forth by police. Greenwood also faces several traffic citations, amounting to $795 in fines.

“Would I have done anything differently?” Stopping to think for a moment, Greenwood answered his own rhetorical question. “After what happened to [Alex Pretti], just standing on a street corner wasn’t enough for me. I wanted to make myself heard, as a veteran and as a community member… I want to feel like the Bend community would stand up and do something real like Pretti did, and I’m not sure if we would.”

The Source made a public records request for police bodycam footage of the incident. Bend PD denied this request, stating that the open case is “not releasable at this time.”