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Alec Baldwin arrested and handcuffed for riding his bike the wrong way in New York

He was also reprimanded for not having identification

Ella Alexander
Wednesday 14 May 2014 15:36 BST
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Alec Baldwin has been arrested in New York.

His crime? Rising his bike the wrong way up a New York street without identification. Pictures show the actor being handcuffed by officers and then getting into a police car.

There are conflicting reports over how the actor handled the altercation which took place in on Fifth Avenue – one onlooker said that he remained “calm and quiet”, while another said that he “went ballistic on the cops, screaming at them”.

Either way, his behaviour didn't seem to make any difference and Baldwin was taken to a nearby police station. Law enforcement sources told TMZ that he was “belligerent” towards officers while in custody, resulting in him receiving a ticket for disorderly conduct – as a well as a fine for riding the wrong way.

In November last year, Baldwin threatened to retire from acting altogether in a bid to maintain his privacy.

“If quitting the television business, the movie business, the theater, any component of entertainment is necessary in order to bring safety and peace to my family, then that is an easy choice,” wrote Baldwin in a column for The Huffington Post.

“In Bloomberg’s New York...40 or 50 photographers... provoke me, daily, by getting dangerously close to me with their cameras as weapons, hoping I will react. When I do, the weapon doubles as a device to record my reaction.”

His comments came weeks after his MSNBC talk show, Late Night With Alec Baldwin, was suspended for two weeks, after he allegedly made an homophobic slur towards a photographer. He was caught on tape seeming to call the man a “c**ksucking f*g”. He denied using the former word, but apologised for the second.

“I did not intend to hurt or offend anyone with my choice of words, but clearly I have – and for that I am deeply sorry,” he said in a statement.

“Words are important. I understand that, and will choose mine with great care going forward. What I said and did this week, as I was trying to protect my family, was offensive and unacceptable. Behaviour like this undermines hard-fought rights that I vigorously support...I want to apologize to my loyal fans and to my colleagues at msnbc – both for my actions and for distracting from their good work.”

Read more: Alec Baldwin retires from public life
Why we should sympathise with Alec Baldwin

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