At ten this morning, I posted a video of a snowball fight from Washington, D.C. The video is about a confrontation between a D.C. police officer and a group of pedestrians, some of whom were throwing snowballs at cars.
The officer unholstered his gun, as photos, his own remarks, and eyewitness testimony amply confirmed. Not merely the video that I posted, but photos, are all over the Web.
It goes without saying that very few officers are this recklessly stupid. It should go without saying that such an officer’s department should not try to cover for him.
Unfortunately, that’s not the case in the District of Columbia: the D.C. Department tried to get the Washington Post to swallow and report the lie that the officer never unholstered his gun. Sadly, the Post printed that lie for a while, and only corrected it in subsequent editions.
(For information from a blog that shows how the Post allowed itself to be deceived about the snowball fight, see the December 21st posts at bsom, a blog “on politics, the media, Washington, and food.”)
If there are photos and videos all over the Web, why would a municipal department spin a lie so easily exposed, and why would a newspaper fall for it?
I don’t know, but a quick guess would be that old habits die hard.
I have often wondered what it would be like to film different, odd events in Whitewater, but one cannot always be in the right place at the right time.
In any event, I cannot imagine that a documentary, something along the lines of A Day in the Life of a Municipal Official, would be either easy to arrange or popular.