In an open letter published on social media, Mellow Johnny's Bike Shop announced that it is terminating its contract with the Austin Police Department following the Black Lives Matter protest.

The Austin, Texas bike store, founded by Lance Armstrong, made this decision after an "assessment of community policy in Austin" and two years before its contract with the City of Austin ended.

Kxan (open in new tab) reports that the three-year contract was originally signed in 2019, valued at $314,000, to supply and repair bikes to the Austin Police Department for an initial three years with an option to extend.

"In our current evaluation of community policing in Austin, we have decided not to purchase, resell, or service police-issued Trek bikes and accessories under the City of Austin RFP that we were previously awarded," a statement posted online states.

"In these times," the statement continues, "it is difficult to balance business and community needs. Our entire employee group participated in this dialogue and dug deep into the community to understand how we can best play a role in keeping our customers safe and this city moving in the right direction."

"Businesses can no longer be non-participants in the communities they serve. We chose to do what we thought would work best to stitch these gaps together and put our community on the right side of history. We have had to make these choices before when we felt that the products we sell put school children at risk of violence"

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This is not the first time Mellow Johnny's Bike Shop has severed ties due to moral conflicts: in 2018, the parent company of various cycling brands, Vista Outdoors, withdrew a cycling brand owned by Vista Outdoors due to its ties to gun manufacturing and shooting sports was dropped due to its ties to gun manufacturing and shooting sports (opens in new tab).

Nor is Mellow Johnny's Bike Shop the first company to sever ties with the police in response to the Black Lives Matter protests. After images of police using motorcycles as weapons against protesters appeared online, Fuji immediately stopped selling them, and Trek later issued a statement condemning police use of the bikes as "abhorrent and far from their intended use" and declaring its "commitment to a better future"

Read the full statement below: