‘IMG_2384’
courtesy of ‘AJ Ashton’
By now, pretty much everyone in DC knows about the cop that brought a gun to a snow ball fight. Before casting aspersions, it should be noted that there is historical precedence for gun fire being exchanged during snowball fights. In 1770, the famous Boston Massacre was sparked, in part, by snowballs thrown at the British by angry Bostonians. Fortunately, this weekend didn’t bear the same political tension as late 18th century Massachusetts, but it’s still an interesting coincidence. Police forces don’t take kindly to snow balls.
True, though in Boston, those snowballs contained ice, brick, rocks, sticks and/or oyster shells and done as a form of agitated protest against the forced occupation of citizens’ property to house British troops.
Context-wise, it’s quite a different setting for precedent…
That said, Detective Baylor was an idiot.
Additionally, the people in Boston were throwing snowballs at people they clearly knew to be British troops. This was a jackass who had his hummer hit and jumped out with a gun. By all accounts I read, he did not identify himself as MPD until uniformed MPD officers actually arrived on the scene.