This weekend’s blizzard dumped over a foot of snow on Washington, D.C. and folks were out Saturday having a good-natured snowball fight. Suddenly a Hummer gets hit with a snowball rolls to a stop. A plainsclothes police officer pulls out his weapon and goes after the crowd. Later the D.C. police claim the officer, Detective Baylor, never unholstered his weapon, in spite of what the video and pictures clearly show.

What’s worse, ABC affiliate WJLA’s horrible reporting pins the blame on “antiwar protesters” dressed in “archist” garb, which from the video appears completely baseless. I suppose anyone who covers his face during a bone-chilling blizzard must be an anti-war anarchist.

I respect the work that police officers do, but Det. Baylor is in obvious need of a long vacation. No one should pull a gun on a snowball fight. Get real.

I feel for the uniformed cop that responded to this call. You can see him pleading with the crowd at 2:28 in the video to just shake it off and keep playing, all but admitting the detective has lost his cool. The guy is stuck between a rock and a hard place.