Things get heated when NYPD officers show up and turn a fun snowball fight in Washington Square Park into a “criminal” investigation.
New Yorkers organized various snowball fights across the city in the wake of Sunday’s blizzard, including one in Washington Square Park in lower Manhattan.
People come here hoping to have some fun, but things take an unnecessary turn when police intervene in the light-hearted event.
Video taken at the park shows NYPD officers being pelted with snowballs and responding in an aggressive manner.
One video in particular showed police walking on a trail as snowballs were thrown at them and the crowd booed.
Still, the road was clear and no one stopped them, although the situation escalated when they began pushing multiple people to the ground.
NYPD: Snowball fight in Washington Square Park is ‘criminal’
The NYPD initially responded to calls about people climbing onto the roof of the park during a snowball fight, ABC7 reported. new york times According to reports, these police officers were sent to “control the crowd.”
Whatever brings them here, it’s clear that park visitors aren’t happy to see them — which isn’t surprising given the ongoing tension between residents and law enforcement in major cities across the country.
After things escalated in Washington Square Park, things escalated online. NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tish has slammed the “disgraceful” and “criminal” behavior of those who “attacked police officers.”
“Our detectives are investigating,” she wrote on the X.
“This is crazy,” user @bse229 wrote. “Your officers walked into a snowball fight and people were having a snowball fight and they tried to stop it and they got hit by snowballs. They were not injured. This was not an assault. Why were they even trying to stop it?”
The NYPD also released photos of young people they are interested in tracking down in connection with the snowball fight.
Online reaction was overwhelmingly supportive of park visitors
Despite the NYPD’s attempts to frame snowball fights as a crime of disrespect for local police, most people on social media who are neither Make America Great Again nor bots seem to think the whole thing is being blown out of proportion.
Even Mayor Zohran Mamdani seemed to take the incident in stride, saying, “From the video I saw, it looked like a snowball fight.” On Tuesday, he also rejected calls from the police union and the city’s police commissioner to treat the snowball fight in Washington Square Park as a criminal matter.
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