He defended them with rocks?
Why don’t you give them a chance to blow off the investigation before you accuse them of blowing off the investigtion?
The guy seriously over reacted. Seriously.
There may be evidence yet unseen, that might change my mind. But as it stands now, this guy should have neither gun nor badge. Rocks?..maybe OK.
After a while, dudes who throw snowballs at strange passing cars often turn to rocks and even bolts in their “snowballs”.
Yeah, you gotta stop these things before they (wait for it… waiiit for it) snowball.
Such as, the officer was traumatized recently when his girlfriend’s offer of a “snowball” was NOT AT ALL what he expected?
True story–my dad got arrested as a kid because he was throwing snowballs at passing cars (this was the late 50s) and one of said snowballs was apparently icy enough to shatter the side window of a passing car. Bad luck it was the police chief, worse luck that said chief knew Grandma from church (but Dad didn’t recognize the car), so he got his ass seriously busted for that.
All that aside, the hipsters were assholes if they were throwing snowballs at cars but the guy in the hummer was a giant douche who should have his gun taken away for being an idiot with it.
People who drive Hummers should expect people to throw stuff at them at all times.
The snow on Saturday was as powdery as possible. There’s no way one of those snowballs could have hurt anybody’s car.
Not even with a rock or bolt inside? Or a chunk of ice?
Wow, that the subject title is pretty misleading, if you ask me.
Often? Got a cite to go with that?
Well that’s the second time this thread that you’ve trotted out that straw man. Any evidence at all that this was the case here?
What about a bomb? Or anthrax?
Well, the whole “they could have ____ in the snowballs” is a bit over the top, but I was raised to never throw anything at a car. It’s rude and just plain dangerous. I mean, yeah, most snowballs are pretty harmless, but let’s be on the safe side here and not do something that could distract or harm the driver of a moving vehicle.
And what if it wasn’t in a snowball but in an envelope?
Really? You didn’t think it was slightly clever? At all?
Oh well. I’ll try to be more literal next time.
When I was a kid it was razor blades.
Each snowball thrown at a car is a separate felony assault. Absurd, but true.
The cop is faced, in his version of the story, with multiple felony assaults committed by a group of ten or more people. He can’t determine, a priori, that the assaults were harmless.
He’s within his rights to draw his gun. No question. It’s not brandishing a weapon because he is a police officer responding to a safety hazard and numerous felony assaults.
Was it a smart thing to do? Hell no. Is he allowed to do it? You betcha.
Okay, so I expressed some sarcastic doubt that the D.C. police would investigate this. But they have, and they have issued a statement:
Imagine if snow were actually falling on his shoulders---- there’d be no way to keep up with all the felonies being racked up!