An 18-year-old man was arrested in Washington State on Friday after taunting a group of police officers with a donut on a stick. The incident took place at a “Back the Blue” rally in Everett on July 17. The event, which had been organized by the Snohomish County Republican Party, ended with the teen in cuffs for assault despite the fact that he never actually touched any of the officers.
- The entire thing was captured on video. The clip shows the unnamed teen on a skateboard approaching a group of sheriffs and marshals and asking them if they “want a bite” of the donut he was dangling on a string at the end of a stick.
- Some of the officers actually thought it was funny at first. You can see them chuckling and one even says that he already ate about 10 donuts that day and therefore didn’t want anymore. Yes, it was an obnoxious “joke” that wasn’t funny, but it was generally pretty harmless.
- Not everyone was laughing, however. At one point, a plain-clothes lieutenant shouted, “Get that [expletive] [expletive] away from my face or I will whoop your ass. Get the [expletive] away from me.” Just after, marshall James Simoneschi, as he was identified by The Daily Herald, shoved the teen away, making him drop the donut.
- The teen was arrested soon after. As and after he was cuffed, the teen girl recording the incident asked the officers why he was being arrested, to which one replied, “He assaulted a lieutenant. You back off or you’ll go to jail.” I think it’s clear from the clip that he absolutely did not assault a lieutenant and in fact it was the officer who assaulted the teen by pushing him away, but okay…
- So what was the defense for this? While the clip shows that the teen never touched the officer, Simoneschi claimed on the police report for the arrest that the lieutenant couldn’t back away from the stick as he was standing in front of a retaining wall. Riiiiight. In addition, the department’s spokesperson Courtney O’Keefe claimed, “The individual in the video was also intimidating and verbally attacking ‘Back the Blue’ rally attendees as they were leaving the area Friday night.” Sure, Jan.
 The full video of the incident can be seen at The Daily Herald.
