On Thursday, the NYPD announced it had made its first arrest stemming from a Monday snowballing incident, which saw police officers repeatedly get pelted with snowballs, some of them the size of boulders, after being called out to Washington Square Park to investigate allegations of unruly behavior among some who were gathered for a pre-planned snowball fight event.
Multiple officers were injured with lacerations to the face and had to be treated at a nearby hospital, according to the NYPD, which is facing the possibility of budget cuts under Mayor Zohran Mamdani, a longtime Defund the Police proponent.
27-year-old Gusmane Coulibaly, otherwise bizarrely known as “Diaper Man” and who three weeks ago was arrested for attempted robbery, was the suspect taken into custody.
He is one of four snowballers whose images were released by the NYPD in an effort to track down the alleged perpetrators and bring them to justice. The other three remain at large:
Though NYC Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch confirmed Coulibaly had been arrested and charged with assault, we learned Thursday night that prosecutors from the Manhattan DA’s office will not be pursuing assault charges against him:
Manhattan prosecutors declined to pursue an assault charge against Gusmane Coulibaly on Thursday night, instead charging him with misdemeanor obstructing government administration and a harassment violation in connection with the viral Washington Square Park snowball fight.Coulibaly, 27, was arraigned in Manhattan Criminal Court on Thursday evening and released on supervised release…[…]In court, prosecutors said that after reviewing the evidence, they were unable to prove that an officer suffered a physical injury caused directly by Coulibaly’s conduct and therefore did not pursue an assault charge. They said the investigation remains ongoing.
Understandably, Police Benevolent Association president Patrick Hendry was perplexed as to why the assault charge was dropped:
Hendry claimed that Coulibaly and the three suspects still at large knowingly packed the snow with ice and rocks before launching it at cops — and balked at the “downplayed” charges.“So why wasn’t assault charged? Why was harassment charged? Why do they feel that that didn’t cause an injury to a police officer, which he clearly, clearly has an injury below his eye?” Hendry said.One victimized officer, only identified as “PO Johnson,” suffered redness, tenderness and pain to the left side of his face near his eye, but it was difficult to prove “that the injury was obtained directly from the defendant,” Manhattan Assistant District Attorney Victoria Notaro said in court.
This was, unfortunately, all too predictable, with Prof. Jacobson calling it on Tuesday:
All of this comes amid backlash to Mamdani’s repeated downplaying of what happened Monday, predictably minimizing it as merely “kids” having a “snowball fight,” comments he made Tuesday when he was first asked about it and then again on Wednesday, when he doubled down:
Videos such as the two below, however, tell the real story:
– Stacey Matthews has also written under the pseudonym “Sister Toldjah” and can be reached via X. –
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