snowsanity

Photo from PoPville flickr user Jess J

A few readers have sent in reports about this incident. Anyone else hear about this/see this? Following is the first report I received:

“A young woman was arrested at about 2am outside of the Wonderland Ballroom in connection with a spontaneous snowball fight involving about 50 people that took place outside the bar. The woman was not seen throwing snowballs at passing vehicles or police by either myself or multiple people I spoke to. As best as I can tell, she was grabbed randomly out of the crowd as she was attempting to walk home.

The woman, identified as Maria Louis after observers called to her, was originally detained alongside a man who was initially accused of throwing snowballs at police but let go without explanation.

The snowball fight began shortly after the Wonderland closed and people began filing outside. For about 20 minutes, people stood on either side of 11th Street at Irving, throwing snowballs at each other but pausing whenever a vehicle passed. A police car drove up, stopped, an officer stepped out, and shortly thereafter Louis was detained and put up against the side of the police car.

A few minutes later, nine police cars were blocking almost an entire block of 11th street. After I tried to inquire about Louis, I was threatened with arrest on charges of disorderly conduct. This threat was repeated by several officers towards several people standing on the sidewalk, some of them asking questions, some not. At one point, someone screamed “Hey Detective Baylor!” and one police car immediately drove up, turned on its spotlight, and officers from inside the car were heard saying “Yeah, turn the light on that motherfucker.”

The 3rd District Police Station was called 2:30am about the status of Louis and I was told she was being charged with “throwing a snowball or something” and I was told to call back. After a second call at 3:15am, I was told she was being charged with a “crime”.”