It refers to the kind of action he is making to move the bike, "pulling" the handlebars to turn it. It makes the sentence sound more action-packed than just saying "turned". By "the street opposite" I would understand that he had to cut across the traffic, so overall the sentence is describing some reckless or hasty driving on the part of the cop. I think you have cut a bit so it makes slightly less sense then it should do, but that's what I understand.

Basically the rider turned around and went into a different street. However, I would caution against using a sentence like this; it's not well-written.