Those cops at the 44th Precinct really don't want kids to have any seasonable fun. Back in March they arrested four kids for hitting an off-duty cop with a snowball, and now there's news of four teenagers being arrested for having a water balloon fight. Just as we predicted.
Police say they were responding to phone calls from neighbors at 171st Street and Walton Avenue, one of whom said, "It was almost like a riot. Like a gang war but with water not bullets." Police arrested 11 of the approximately 25 gathered in the street during the water balloon fight on May 26th, and allege some were "throwing garbage cans in the street, running in and out of traffic, stopping cars, throwing water balloons at motorists and squirting them with water guns."
The families of Erick Martinez, 16; Ryan Ginyard, 18; Jayvon McKinney, 12, and Maurice Manners, 21; filed lawsuits for $1 million each yesterday, saying cops overreacted and the kids were just trying to cool off. Ginyard told the Daily News, "I asked the cop, 'Are we seriously getting locked up for a water balloon fight?' Why would I want to go to jail on the hottest day of the year?" Martinez, who spent the night in jail for unlawful assembly, said, "We were having fun that day, it was hot." According to Weather.com, the recorded high on May 26th was 91 degrees.
Cops also apparently didn't alert the minors' parents as to their whereabouts, leaving Martinez's mother to drive around for three hours looking for him when he didn't come home. She finally got to the precinct, and said, "I asked why he wasn't able to call me and why no one else did and they said they were keeping him here to punish him." Their attorney says the affidavit never mentions gang violence, only kids and water balloons. We won't dare joke about a Super Soaker arrest, lest that comes true too.
