<p>A felony</p>
<p>[Felony</a> Snowball Tossing Charges Lodged - February 9, 2010](<a href=“The Smoking Gun: Public Documents, Mug Shots”>Documents | The Smoking Gun)</p>
<p>JMU just keeps making national headlines don’t they? I’m from Harrisonburg and I’ve always found the police to be pretty lenient, especially in regards to students (though there have been cases where exactly the opposite has occured).</p>
<p>I’m wondering if there’s not more to the story.</p>
<p>well, i don’t know the details but I know of a few tragic incidents where individuals were killed due to falling ice chunks. Distracting a driver can cause a serious accident. I think they’re trying to send a message here…</p>
<p>Well, they threw snowballs at the cops. Generally any sort of physical act of aggression, no matter how trivial, gets treated very seriously if directed towards cops. If they made “stupid” into a felony, then this would certainly qualify.</p>
<p>I really enjoyed this online comment on the story in the Washington Post:</p>
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<p>All of the above happened in Fairfax County, though, not Harrisonburg. In the case of the snowballs, I think a misdemeanor and substantial fine would be a lot more appropriate. A felony is definite overkill–being an obnoxious jerk should not be a felony offense. There’s a big difference between throwing snowballs at a slowly moving vehicle and dropping ice chunks off of an overpass. It was an unmarked police car, so they might not have known it was a cop.</p>