Awful Bumping Into You Like This

Three items of various importance:

Snowballs in Hell
Up by U Street, people twittered themselves a massive snowball fight meeting. Apparently all was ducky--the young adults had also helped cars floundering in the snow--even a police car! until they threw snowballs at an off-duty detective's car. He took exception and got out with gun drawn. (Perhaps 'unholstered' conveys it best.)

Well, he's crazy. This town is full of politically active people with a good poli sci education and cameras, Blackberries, and aspirations to make a statement (or a documentary). They didn't know he was a detective: car unmarked, plain clothes, heavy jacket--until he radioed in for backup. Then the 'pig' comments started. I hate that too.

Police backup came with guns out (and quickly re-holstered) because they saw it was stupid stuff. They were apparently misled by the detective. Then the uniforms sought to quell the disturbance with the detective still screaming behind them.

This is not going to go away. It's going to radiate outward, in millions of future interactions with our PD. The investigation is ongoing. The uniforms referred it up to supervisors. But you know, the City Paper has it now.

We don't know how that off-duty detective was circumstanced prior (grisly investigation, prior argument, was he drinking? what?). The problem is, whatever was prior, that's what teamwork is for. To gain support for tough times. Not to make more crap for everybody else on your side.

I have no way of knowing how good the fellowship would have been, before. I do know the fellowship after puts a strain on an already strained department. I don't have to be in law enforcement to understand that.

But this is an isolated incident. We have a bigger problem with city services, and it's potentially even more lethal in impact--but--not on the same emotional register.

Mass Transit Mismanagement:
WMATA has lots of headaches. People throwing themselves on the track, that's one. Can't fully operate during snow periods, that's two.  The potential for terrorist incidents that must be dealt with. That's big, but the big one? Those cute Metro cars keep having (or narrowly avoiding) accidents. Nine people died in a June crash. Two Metro workers were struck and killed in two separate accidents, and safety inspections were not scheduled afterward. In November, another crash. The entire transit authority is broke.  And we narrowly missed another crash due to equipment error last week.

I've decided that this disparity in tone and type of coverage is due to location. One stupid thing happened on the street. Bad decisions for Metro happened in an office. But more people are affected by crammed commutes. Especially if the safety equipment doesn't work.

Strange Diets:
In other civic news, the capital of the United States is out of broccoli, because the stores have not brought in new shipments due to snow. We are also mostly out of salad and coffeecake, too. However, there's still plenty of jelly and soft drinks. I noticed the liquor store is fully stocked, although, almost out of Perrier, which was what I wanted. We're going to be okay. Maybe a little hyperactive. So watch it with the drinking, the snowballs, the weapons, and the words, people.

Photos: city paper, washington post