Categorized | Crime, News





14th & U Snowball Fight: Off-Duty Detective Loses Cool, Draws Gun


With video and photos.

This is just… weird? There was an ongoing, friendly snowball fight today at 14th and U NW. Then, according to NBC Channel 7, the fight was joined by antiwar protesters. Around 2:45 or so this afternoon, some of the participants threw snowballs at a passing Hummer SUV. It turns out that the driver of the Hummer was an off-duty police detective who lost his cool, got out of his car and drew his gun. He calmed down after a uniformed MPD officer arrived. NBC Channel 7 reports on the incident, noting that MPD is defending the uniformed officer.

It gets convoluted, doesn’t it?

This is from Gawker, “Fun with Guns: Viligante DC Cop Dishes Draconian Martial Law for Snowball Fight.” Gawker picked it up from Washington City Paper (with incredible photos) and the ABC affiliate in DC. There are lots of tweets about it, too.

Gawker:

Well, as it turns out, Washington DC residents know exactly how much of a joke 911 is in their own town, after a cop. Pulled a gun. On kids. Throwing snowballs. Yeah, and they’re reading this cop the riot act.

[There are people yelling bad words at that cop! So if you are in a place where bad words are not safe to be heard than that video is NSFW!]

Via the Washington City Paper and DC’s ABC affiliate, a bunch of kids were having a snowball fight, a few pegged a Hummer with some snowballs, the cop gets out of the car, starts screaming at the kids, and decides to threaten them and their fun with the power of the law. In other words: his gun, that can put holes in people and make them dead. As opposed to a snowball, the highest grade of which will give you a welt.

This post was written by:

mattyillini - who has written 1319 posts on Borderstan.

Co-founder and co-editor of Borderstan.

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No Responses to “14th & U Snowball Fight: Off-Duty Detective Loses Cool, Draws Gun”

  1. Avi says:

    Oh good! We made #6 on the BBC’s most read stories of the day. How proud Chief Lanier must be. Does Phil Mendelsohn have the moral courage to call for this officers dismissal?

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8423705.stm

Trackbacks/Pingbacks

  1. [...] 14th and U snowball fight is from a former neighbor who now lives in Columbia Heights. Nothing controversial here, just a snowball fight (CNN ran a story that is pretty good). He had already left before the [...]

  2. [...] } MPD Chief Cathy Lanier yesterday issued a statement regarding the around-the-world famous snowball fight at 14th and U Streets NW on Saturday. The fame occurred after the snowballers pelted a passing Hummer that was driven by an [...]

  3. [...] : "http%3A%2F%2Fborderstan.com%2F2009%2F12%2F28%2Fpoll-great-snowball-fight-at-14th-u%2F" } The Great Snowball Fight at 14th & U on Saturday, Dec. 19 garnered media coverage around the [...]

  4. [...] snowball fight got worldwide coverage—thanks to the fact that (1) it was organized on Facebook and Twitter, (2) an off-duty DC police [...]


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