There’s an astonishing video from Washington, D.C. during the unusually large snowfall there last week. You may have seen this video already, but if you’ve not, it’s well worth watching. (Note: Language NSFW.)
In the video, a group of pedestrians who have been throwing snowballs at cars are confronted by an angry motorist, who is also a plain-clothes police officer. The officer draws his gun, and confronts the crowd of snowball throwers and bystanders.
First the video, then a few comments.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uAgQKJuriIo&feature=player_embedded
1. The officer is a reckless fool to draw his gun in this situation. He risks only significant injury to himself or others. He has no control of the area, and tempts escalation through his own lack of control, or a confrontation by someone in the crowd. Here one sees the disproportionate – and truly stupid – use of power.
2. The crowd is wrong to curse at him or call him a pig, but they’re a non-violent group. (Thinking too much of snowball throwing as violence is what leads to this confrontation.) They’re generally clever, and mock his excessive threat of force: “Don’t bring a gun to a snowball fight!”
3. As with video cameras at tea party protests, the bystanders are quickly able to record official actions, and load the videos to dozens of websites. Now the officer looks like a reckless fool across the entire continent.
4. I am not posting on this video in reference to posting on complaints about snowball throwing by University of Wisconsin-Whitewater police. There’s absolutely nothing to suggest campus police behaved in the same way.
The story is interesting in, and of, itself. Neither snow in D.C., nor rambunctious pedestrians, nor a foolish D.C. cop are anything more than coincidences from a faraway place.
I don’t see the incidents as connected, and no one else could reasonably make that leap, either.
5. There’s no arguable element of race in this story. The officer is black, but the crowd is both white and black.
They had been, according to other accounts, throwing snowballs at Hummers. Too funny, really: left-of-center D.C. resorts to action against a gas-guzzler and carbon dioxide emitter with snowballs during one of the biggest snowfalls in area memory.
More on the story is available at