Two Students Charged With Felonies for Throwing Snowballs
February 9, 2010 • By Katie Thisdell, The Breeze
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HARRISONBURG, Va. — Snowballs aren’t just for fun and games — they can also be considered “missiles” and land the throwers with felony charges.
That’s what two JMU students found out after being arrested Saturday for allegedly throwing snowballs at an unmarked police car and a city snowplow.
Ryan William Knight and Charles Joseph Gill, both 21, face felony charges for throwing missiles at occupied vehicles.
Knight, a junior, has been a guard for JMU’s basketball team since 2008. He joined as a walk-on but sat out the 2007-2008 season as a medical redshirt. Gill is a team manager for the Dukes.
The two men were throwing snowballs at a snowplow truck about 5 p.m. Saturday at the 1300 block of Devon Lane, according to Harrisonburg police. After the driver called police for help, the two men allegedly continued to throw snowballs as the plow and an undercover patrol car drove by.
According to Mary-Hope Vass, spokeswoman for Harrisonburg Police, the men then threw shovels full of snow onto the windshields of both vehicles and into the inside of the police vehicle.
There was no damage to either vehicle, she said.
“It doesn’t matter what object you throw at a moving vehicle, it could be anything, it would all fall under the specific charge they received,” Vass said.
She said the hazardous driving conditions made the situation worse. Police received five calls Friday evening for people throwing snowballs at vehicles as well.
“It is a safety hazard to throw things at a moving vehicle,” Vass said. “People could be hurt.”
Knight and Gill have been released on $1,000 bonds each from Harrisonburg-Rockingham County Regional Jail and are scheduled to appear in court Feb. 22.
Check the Thursday’s issue of The Breeze for more on this story.
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6 Responses to “Two Students Charged With Felonies for Throwing Snowballs”
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The criminal justice system is in dire need of change. You can be a felon for sneezing the wrong way anymore. The government is out to lock up all Americans. A woman in Florida was convicted of a felony for not removing a tree in her yard that a hurricane knocked over. Another fellow sold a computer on Ebay and the buyer sent him a counterfeit check for payment. The cops arrested the seller for possession of a bad check and convicted him. This country has already gone down the tubes. For non violent felons, even after getting their civil rights restored, still can’t find work. Background checks are routine now and if you are a felon you are the equivalent of a child rapist, murderer, animal abuser, and sex offender. We need change now. Please Sarah Palin - save us all from the hellfire of the Obama socialist republic!
Being charged isn’t a conviction. What prosecutor is going to pursue this? What jury is going to bring a felony conviction for throwing snowballs? A warning should have sufficed or even a misdemeanor fbut instead we have this waste of taxpayer money pursuing felony charges that’ll never stand up with a jury. Sexual assaults are up all over campus but we’ll tie up officers with busting snowball throwers? What’s wrong with this picture?
Bros, read the article, these morons dumped shovels of snow on and IN the cop car. Stupidity shouldn’t be rewarded and it’s an idiot’s game to cry injustice on behalf of these fools.
@BayPharm
Bwahaha - Sarah Palin save us from the hellfire of Obama socialist republic is pretty funny. Sarah Palin can’t save us from anything! She is the puppet and is grossly under qualified to hold any political office, except maybe governor of a state that is mostly wilderness. Her ignorance is astounding. The fact that she has any kind of political support is even more astounding.
What you should have said was “Obama save us from the Straussian neoconservatism that grossly eroded our civil rights in the wake of the largest terrorist attack on US soil.”
But other than that slip of misguided teabag propaganda, I agree with you.
just from reading this article does not mean you know the whole story nor is the story 100% accurate. news can be fabricated. not once was snow dumped IN the cop car or were shovels of snow dumped on top of the car. being a witness of this incident, yet not knowing these two boys, there is no way that these boys should be charged with felonies. there were probably 40 people outside enjoying the snow day and from watching from my window there were way more than just 2 people throwing snowballs. our tax money can be put to much better things than putting these two boys in jail for just having a little bit of fun in a college town even though it was not the smartest thing in the world to do.
Wow How smart are these guys? How well they represent JMU athletics too. Keep up the good works guys. You know this story is national in new York papers and on ESPN. Maybe next time the whole basketball team can do it so we can forfeit the rest of this miserable season. Oh and again GOOD JOB hitting a cop car.