Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

I hear Dakka loves this kind of topic

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/12/20/AR2009122000881.html
http://mashable.com/2009/12/20/twitter-snowball-fight/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sFC8mNdxV0c

I hear this is how the Boston Massacre got started.


Seriously though, if you throw things at people going about their day you deserve to be reprimanded (if not threatened with a firearm).

Hmm, so the dude gets out of his hummer and approaches with gun in hand, scolds the crowd and as he is walking back to his hummer someone throws a snowball at him?

Since when did it become a good idea to throw a snowball at a man who approached you with a gun in his hand? That is akin to using your bare hand to feed a lion a piece of steak or hamburger. He will probably get more than just the meat you offered him.

He's a COP - he's entitled!

I heard this on the radio and I thought 'I wonder if the usual suspects on dakka that always defend policeman will defend this idiot?'


And for the record, it's a really stupid thing to brandish a firearm over a trivial offence like snowballs. Yes, it's stupid to provoke the lunatic brandishing the gun, but that doesn't change the fact that it was very stupid to draw the gun in the first place.

If the kid or anyone HAD thrown a snowball at the cop he could have nabbed them for assault a peace officer.

Approaching with gun drawn may not have been the wisest but the crowd, the one in particular, using foul language and verbally assaulting a peace officer wasn't the smartest thing to do either.

Someone is lucky they didn't get tazed. Not to mention throwing snowballs at cars and the cops did nothing about that? They have some really laid back cops in D.C or else the cops just didn't want to bother with paperwork. Most places throwing snowballs at cars would get you slapped with a citation or the very least a warning.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Great way to blanket people who defend cops against idiots.

This cop was clearly not the wisest cop in the world. Gotta admit that the cop was pretty calm when the crowd started calling him a pig, though for the record that guy who was the one using the "F bomb" the most should have gotten his jaw broken.

He's the guy who stepped into the middle of a snowball fight. He gets what he deserves.

@Fateweaver: 'That Cop' was being a dick. If your car (a hummer at that) gets hit by a snowball, policeman or not, you don't brandish your weapon at them.

This guy was a killjoy and a control freak to boot. The other policemen didn't care, no one was getting hurt. It was a bit of harmless fun. Geez, member of the force or not, what a jerk...

Maybe so but if I'm a cop and I made it clear that I was and someone threw a snowball at me they'll be LUCKY to get a warning. Odds are I'd arrest them for assaulting a peace officer.

Not siding with the cop. It was unwise to have had his gun out over something like thrown snowballs but I'm surprised that the crowd was not made to disperse (in fact the officer at the end said they could keep it up so long as nobody got hurt or they didn't break any laws) and the fact that the one who was verbally assaulting the cop wasn't fined for doing so (or very least made to leave).

Trust me, you throw a snowball at a cop here in Mn and you will have a new home for at least 30 days.

Fateweaver wrote:If the kid or anyone HAD thrown a snowball at the cop he could have nabbed them for assault a peace officer.

Approaching with gun drawn may not have been the wisest but the crowd, the one in particular, using foul language and verbally assaulting a peace officer wasn't the smartest thing to do either.

Someone is lucky they didn't get tazed. Not to mention throwing snowballs at cars and the cops did nothing about that? They have some really laid back cops in D.C or else the cops just didn't want to bother with paperwork. Most places throwing snowballs at cars would get you slapped with a citation or the very least a warning.

Yes, the kid could have been nabbed for assault. Making the assault the arrest would not require drawing a gun. You're only supposed to draw your gun when it's likely you'll have to shoot someone - and this was a snowball fight.

And yes, some people from the snowball fight were idiots. The idea that some people in the general public will act like idiots is not exactly news. The idea that policemen will not always react in the best way, as they're only human, is also not news. It becomes news when the reaction by the cop is so ridiculously over the top that it becomes funny - like drawing a gun in response to someone throwing a snowball at you.

But the idea that people will defend such ridiculous over-reactions by policeman... well that's fascinating.

Fateweaver wrote:
Not siding with the cop. It was unwise to have had his gun out over something like thrown snowballs but I'm surprised that the crowd was not made to disperse

You forgot to say 'Bah, Humbug'.

(in fact the officer at the end said they could keep it up so long as nobody got hurt or they didn't break any laws) and the fact that the one who was verbally assaulting the cop wasn't fined for doing so (or very least made to leave).

Apart from the chant of "Don't bring a gun to a snowball fight!" (which is perfectly sensible) I didn't pick up any foul language been thrown at him. Maybe you have better hearing than I do.

EDIT: Nevermind. It was at the end. *rolls eyes*


Automatically Appended Next Post:
@sebster: Oooh, I spotted that.

F'ing pig is verbal assault. Maybe you don't think so but you call a cop an F'ing pig enough times you will get arrested for assault of a cop and fined. Free speech isn't free when it is used to slander or harass someone else.

Again Seb, your reading comprehension skills appear to be lacking. Where in any of my posts did I say the officer was in his right to draw a gun? In fact I have said the opposite.

I am not defending his drawing of the gun. I acknowledged it wasn't a wise thing to do. Just because I didn't say "that F'ing pig was a trigger happy kook" does not mean I agree that drawing the gun was right. Unwise =/= agree with.

So before attacking me with a blanket and thinly veiled attack, try actually reading what I post. You call me out all the time for supposedly speaking without reading so you should try to practice what you preach.

In unrelated news, sort of, this guy IS an IDIOT. See Seb, I enlarged the font so you can't misread what I say.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091221/ap_on_re_us/us_child_shoots_child;_ylt=Aj8KCj3w89IgwaK3rZ5044VvzwcF;_ylu=X3oDMTJxZm90dXIxBGFzc2V0A2FwLzIwMDkxMjIxL3VzX2NoaWxkX3Nob290c19jaGlsZARwb3MDMQRzZWMDeW5fYXJ0aWNsZV9zdW1tYXJ5X2xpc3QEc2xrA3BvbGljZWFycmVzdA--

For sure deserves jail time and a huge fine.

I also wonder who is supposed to be defending the policeman's drawing of the gun in this thread.

I think seb is seeing ghost posts because nobody is defending the cop.

Dirty glasses? Dirty monocle? Hmm, I don't really know because no post I have read is defending the cop.

I guess my post could be construed as defending the cop, since I criticized the snowball throwers and not him.

In that case, I should clarify that I don't think the cop was right to have drawn his gun, especially in response to his car being hit with snow. (On a day when it's already snowing? Really? Why even get out of the car?)

Fateweaver wrote:Again Seb, your reading comprehension skills appear to be lacking. Where in any of my posts did I say the officer was in his right to draw a gun? In fact I have said the opposite.

Yeah, I was writing my last post when you said that. Not that it matters much anyway, as it took until your fourth post to actually get around to saying that. In the meantime, the most you'd done to criticise the cop was say his action was not the wisest (and that was in the context 'his action was not the wisest but...') while in your first post you only criticised the guy throwing the snowball, in your second post you gave the 'not the wisest comment' while then going on to criticies the snowball thrower, including a suggestion that he should have been tased, while in your third post you continue talking about why the guy should have been arrested.

So yeah, you did get around to saying the cop was an idiot, after first attempting to move the discussion towards the far less ridiculous part of the story and suggesting other ridiculous over-reactions to what was a public nuisance charge at most.

So before attacking me with a blanket and thinly veiled attack, try actually reading what I post.

Thinly veiled? Attack?

I've said there are people on Dakka who will defend the most ridiculous of police actions. You were on this thread, obviously you were included in that. How that's thinly veiled is beyond me.

But how is pointing out someone's got a silly POV an attack? Isn't that basically what Dakka is?

Beyond him drawing a gun (which is very much OTT) I would probably chastise the guy for being a public disturbance and ruining peoples fun.

@Fateweaver: Yeah, I was waiting for the end to load and that's when I heard it. (Crap internetz here. ) Regardless, that's not what set the guy off.

Actually, from about 1/2 way in to the end when it was revealed he was a cop the "f'ing pig" bomb was dropped numerous times.

Seb, just because I didn't chastise the cop right away but instead commented on the overreaction by the crowd, one heckler in particular, does not mean I see them more evil than the cop. Just pointing out the fact that the heckler in question should have gotten 10,000volts sent through him.

I really wonder how cops keep their cool so well. Someone calls me an f'ing anything at a bar they normall get a beer bottle across their head or jaw. Guess maybe that's why I'm not a cop.

Well, if we're going down the rabbit hole, how come nobody's noted out that the cop is black and the snowball thrower is white. Clearly, the snowball thrower is racist.

Oh I'm sure someone might try that.

Although from what I've seen in other threads had the snowball thrower been black and the cop white there would be about 8 members in here now proclaiming the cop a racist ahole for wanting to arrest the guy for assault (as that's what he appeared to want to do near the end).

JohnHwangDD wrote:Well, if we're going down the rabbit hole, how come nobody's noted out that the cop is black and the snowball thrower is white. Clearly, the snowball thrower is racist.

What are you talking about? That police officer was probably a Christian, trying to stop people who just wanted to have fun because his magic sky fairy told him to.

Is the rabbit white? Didn't Alice chase a white rabbit down a hole?

I think many people feel Obamanation is a wonderland. It for sure is a land of make believe but it's more akin to the world in the Matrix. Some people perceive it to be a wonderous place when all it is is a giant lab of people providing fuel for this giant supercomputer known as liberal government and not actually seeing any benefits coming their way.

Ha. I like that anology. I should sig it.

Fateweaver wrote:Hmm, so the dude gets out of his hummer and approaches with gun in hand, scolds the crowd and as he is walking back to his hummer someone throws a snowball at him?

Since when did it become a good idea to throw a snowball at a man who approached you with a gun in his hand? That is akin to using your bare hand to feed a lion a piece of steak or hamburger. He will probably get more than just the meat you offered him.

There was a whole crowd of snowball fighters. Several of them must have had guns. If the cop had started shooting wildly some righteous citizen would have taken him down pretty quickly.

Fateweaver wrote:Seb, just because I didn't chastise the cop right away but instead commented on the overreaction by the crowd, one heckler in particular, does not mean I see them more evil than the cop. Just pointing out the fact that the heckler in question should have gotten 10,000volts sent through him.

In this instance, we have a guy in the street being a jackhole, and a cop wildly over-reacting and drawing a gun on him. You chose to focus on the random guy who acted like a bit of a jerk.

That's not to say that's just something you do. We all do it. A big part of how we form our beliefs, and a really big part of how we argue for them is where we place our emphasis. We will acknowledge the facts that favour the other POV but then go about making a really big deal about the facts that favour our side.

I really wonder how cops keep their cool so well. Someone calls me an f'ing anything at a bar they normall get a beer bottle across their head or jaw. Guess maybe that's why I'm not a cop.

Policing is a tough job, and one where it easy to act badly. That's why we have such high standards for police conduct.

Fateweaver wrote:If the kid or anyone HAD thrown a snowball at the cop he could have nabbed them for assault a peace officer.

Approaching with gun drawn may not have been the wisest but the crowd, the one in particular, using foul language and verbally assaulting a peace officer wasn't the smartest thing to do either.

Someone is lucky they didn't get tazed. Not to mention throwing snowballs at cars and the cops did nothing about that? They have some really laid back cops in D.C or else the cops just didn't want to bother with paperwork. Most places throwing snowballs at cars would get you slapped with a citation or the very least a warning.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Great way to blanket people who defend cops against idiots.

This cop was clearly not the wisest cop in the world. Gotta admit that the cop was pretty calm when the crowd started calling him a pig, though for the record that guy who was the one using the "F bomb" the most should have gotten his jaw broken.

The cop's actions were not sane. He should be, in this order:
1. Arrested and charge with public disturbance and 200 counts of assault with a deadly weapon (or however many people were there);
2. Fired.
I am as serious as a heart attack on both. He pulled a gun on kids having a snow fight.

Alrighty time for my two cents. One an officer should never pull their weapon unless they are presented with a dangerous situation. That said it was assault on an officer, but it was a snowball. Now if it was ice and the cop had to go to the hospital I could see a arrest, but at the most all he should have done was detaine the person who throw it(if they could figure who) and take them to their parents. I think he needs to remember the crap he pulled as a kid.

Yup. When Joe civilian pulls a gun like this, he goes to jail. No stop, no bail. Straight into the slammer.

Too bad he didn't shoot the kid.

Honesty Id just laugh if he did.

Well, the cop WAS acting like a fething pig, IMO. Is it any wonder respect for police officers is being eroded? Pro-police people shoudn't support that guy - he makes other cops jobs more difficult. People see a guy acting like that and assume all cops are like that. I support our Police officers, they do a difficult job that requires a great deal of patience, but 'patience' is the key word. The Police are there to protect the community, not rule the streets. And that means you will have to deal with arseholes - but being an arsehole shouldn't be against the law.

Otherwise I'd be looking at some serious jail-time!

Being a disrespectful donkey-cave should be against the law.