The Manhattan District Attorney’s Office declined to pursue an assault-on-a-police-officer charge against a suspect accused of pelting NYPD officers with packed snow during a chaotic melee in Washington Square Park.
Gusmane Coulibaly, 27, had initially been charged with assault on a police officer, obstruction of governmental administration and disorderly conduct after what authorities described as a snowball free-for-all escalated into violence.
But during his arraignment Thursday evening, prosecutors dropped the top charge.
The remaining counts were reduced to harassment and obstruction of governmental administration as a second-degree violation and misdemeanor, according to the criminal complaint.
The decision drew swift condemnation from the head of the city’s largest police union.
Patrick Hendry, president of the Police Benevolent Association, pushed back on characterizations of the incident as harmless fun.
The purported “playful snowball fight” was “an attack on the uniform these police officers wear every day,” Hendry told reporters.
He described officers responding to a disorderly group on a rooftop before being surrounded by hundreds of people.
“This was a grown adult that was here. Our police officers went to this location, on the rooftop, for a disorderly group, came down, and they were surrounded by hundreds of individuals who then attacked all police officers,” Hendry said.
Hendry further alleged that Coulibaly and three suspects still at large packed snowballs with ice and rocks before throwing them at officers.
He questioned why prosecutors stepped back from the more serious charge.
“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.
In court, Manhattan Assistant District Attorney Victoria Notaro said one officer, identified only as “PO Johnson,” suffered redness, tenderness, and pain to the left side of his face near his eye.
However, she told the court it was difficult to prove “that the injury was obtained directly from the defendant.”
Hendry said the officer remains out on sick leave and is “on the mend.”
The case now moves forward with reduced charges, even as police advocates argue the original counts better reflected what they say was a dangerous escalation.
For officers on the ground, union leaders insist, this was no winter game. It was a test of whether the city backs the badge — and, at this point, the likelihood of that seems like a snowball’s chance in Hell.
Watch the clip below:
NEW: Assault charge DROPPED in viral Washington Square Park snowball fight case.
DA Office declined to move forward with an assault charge against 27-year-old Gusmane Coulibaly, instead filing a misdemeanor count of obstructing governmental administration and a harassment… pic.twitter.com/RTdrUAliLS
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