The Manhattan District Attorney’s Office chose not to charge one individual alleged to have thrown snowballs at NYPD officers during a scuffle at Washington Square Park, specifically not pursuing charges for assault on a police officer during a court hearing on Thursday.
Guzman Coulibaly, who is 27 years old, was initially charged with assault on a police officer, obstruction of public administration, and disorderly conduct in connection with the chaotic snowball fight at the park.
Despite this, when he appeared in court Thursday night, the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office did not press forward with the assault charge.
Other charges against him were lessened to harassment and obstruction of governmental administration, categorized as a second-degree violation and a misdemeanor, according to the criminal complaint.
Patrick Hendry, the president of the Police Benevolent Association, expressed to reporters that this supposed “funny snowball fight” was more clearly an assault on police officers and their uniforms.
“Here we had grown adults. Our officers arrived to find a chaotic scene, surrounded by hundreds of onlookers, and then they were attacked,” Hendry stated.
He criticized the “minor” charges, claiming Coulibaly and three other unidentified suspects had intentionally packed their snowballs with ice and stones before throwing them at the police.
“So why wasn’t he charged with assault? Why did they go with harassment? Don’t they think he didn’t hurt a police officer who clearly had a cut under his eye?” Hendry questioned.
One officer, known as “P.O. Johnson,” suffered some swelling and pain near his left eye, but proving that the injury was a direct result of Coulibaly’s actions was challenging, according to Assistant District Attorney Victoria Notaro, who spoke in court.
Hendry mentioned that Johnson is currently on sick leave but is recovering.
Coulibaly remained silent during the hearing, yet his attorney, George Bonvolakis, accused the NYPD of overly criticizing Mayor Zoran Mamdani in relation to what he termed a “would-be influencer.”
Bonvolakis leaned towards the notion that Mamdani’s comments after the event, which he called “children playing snowmen,” misrepresented the situation. Moreover, Bonvolakis repeatedly misstated Coulibaly’s age as 22, although he is actually 27.
Regardless of Bonvolakis’s attempts to frame the event as a “glorified subpoena,” Coulibaly insisted that a judge mentioned he had “no idea what his intentions were” when he threw the snowball, arguing that it indicated a “complete lack of judgment.”
Coulibaly was granted supervised release and is set to appear in a different court on April 9 for the snowball charge and on March 15 regarding another charge related to a straphanger incident.
