Rik Stevens

Police officers and outlaw biker gangs often stand on common ground. Both attract the young and adventurous who value order, discipline and brotherhood. And on weekends tens of thousands of cops routinely trade their cruisers and badges for choppers and club colors.

The pebble was tossed when a boy in upstate New York posted a video on Facebook showing four others cruelly taunting 68-year-old bus monitor Karen Klein, and the ripples began. More than a million viewers watched her humiliation and answered with cries of indignation — and nearly half a million dollars. Even in an increasingly connected world of information flow, the response to Klein's plight was a stunning example of the power of people in the Me-Media era.