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Will the snowball charges stick? Veteran NYC snow scrum attorneys are divided.
By
Ben Feuerherd
Published Feb 26, 2026
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By
Ben Feuerherd
Published Feb 26, 2026
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Two New York City defense attorneys who represented young men accused of throwing a snowball at an NYPD officer years ago are divided over whether the people who pelted officers in Washington Square Park on Monday should be charged with assault.
Neil Wollerstein and Jeffrey Zeichner represented five young men who were arrested in 2010 after an off-duty police officer said they threw a snowball at him. The Bronx district attorney later dropped the charges and the men sued the city and won a payout.
Wollerstein said the authorities should not arrest and charge the people caught on video hitting officers on Monday with what the police said was snow and ice.
“It’s beyond over the top. It’s absurd,” Wollerstein said.
Zeichner countered, “I don’t think they’re overplaying their hand. I think it is proper.”
The NYPD said this week that it is seeking four suspects for assaulting police officers after a pre-planned snowball fight at Washington Square Park. The incident touched off a storm of criticism from police unions and prompted contrasting responses from NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch and Mayor Zohran Mamdani.
Tisch called the targeting of officers with snowballs “disgraceful” and “criminal.” The NYPD said two officers were taken to Greenwich Village Hospital in stable condition after being hit by the ice and snowballs.
Accusations of pelting police with snowballs: a timeline
Linda Diaz Macal holds a snowball during an impromptu snowball fight with friends near Mount Tamalpais State Park Visitor Center in Mill Valley, Calif., Wednesday, Feb. 18, 2026.
Photo by Stephen Lam/San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images
2009: Campus police at East Carolina University arrested one person and used pepper spray on others when they tried to control a huge snowball fight on campus, Fox News reported.
2013: A Detroit teenager was arrested and charged with malicious destruction of property after police say he threw a snowball at a police cruiser, according to the Guardian. He served 40 days in juvenile detention before the charges were dismissed for lack of evidence, the Guardian reported.
2014: A Chicago eighth grader was charged with throwing a snowball at a police officer, according to the Chicago Tribune. The child said he didn’t throw the snowball, and that the person who did hit the officer’s car, not the officer, the Tribune reported.
2025: A snowball fight in Tallahassee, Florida, ended with police shooting pepper balls into the crowd, according to WFSU News, the local public media station. They arrested one man in the incident, WFSU reported.
Mamdani said he viewed the incident as a snowball fight that got out of hand and said New Yorkers should not target NYPD officers with snowballs.
Wollerstein and Zeichner found some common ground when discussing their case from years ago and the Washington Square Park snowball fight.
They both agreed that the circumstances of the two incidents are vastly different. In their case, an officer encountered young men having an impromptu snowball fight on a Bronx street. He later admitted that he had never actually been hit by a snowball, the lawyers said.
They also acknowledged that the police officers in Washington Square Park showed restraint and de-escalated the situation by walking away from the park as they were being showered with snowballs.
Beyond that, they largely disagreed.
Zeichner said if police officers were physically injured by people hurling chunks of ice at them, it likely constitutes an assault.
“You can’t throw chunks of ice at anyone, not just police officers, anyone. That’s an assault,” he said. “I think that seeking prosecution is appropriate.”
Wollerstein said the NYPD should never have been called to respond to kids having a snowball fight.
“Shouldn’t the NYPD be policing and looking for real crime that’s going on? Perhaps in the subway, perhaps somewhere else, as opposed to inserting themselves into a snowball fight that people are voluntarily participating in,” Wollerstein said.
“From what I’ve seen, the commissioner has now assigned detectives to investigate a snowball fight. You know, that’s really not a good use of limited resources,” he added.
Longtime defense attorney Ron Kuby said separately that he thinks if the Washington Square Park suspects are arrested, they could be indicted – but securing a conviction could be tricky for prosecutors.
“It would be a very hard case to prove,” Kuby said, adding that it might be difficult to show officers suffered actual physical injury.
“The other problem is: it was a snowball fight. We’ve all been in snowball fights,” Kuby added. “I don’t know if a jury is going to be inclined to convict under these circumstances.”
Tagged
new york city
nypd
public safety
Ben Feuerherd
Ben Feuerherd covers public safety and policing for WNYC and Gothamist. He previously covered federal courts for The New York Post and The Messenger. His work has also appeared in POLITICO, the Daily Beast and NBC New York. Got a tip? Email [email protected].
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