In a reckless example of the latest uber-dangerous summer fad, four lawless yoots drove past an innocent girl and her younger brother standing on a street corner, dousing the two with a searing stream of chlorinated dihydrogen monoxide. Or, as thesmokinggun.com details, “Four Pennsylvanians who fired water guns loaded with chlorinated water on a teen and her younger brother from a moving car now face misdemeanor disorderly conduct and harassment charges.” You may know the noxious substance used in the brutal attack as pool water . . .

Yeah, pool water. Things must be kinda slow down at the New Castle, PA cop shop now that summer’s set in.

The shooters met up with police at the Greco home where, according to cops, the four admitted to firing the liquid at Sloan-Mallory. After being informed that the victim wished to press charges, Greco’s parents became “very irate and started yelling and causing a disturbance”–throwing police off their property.

Police left the scene, but not before informing the quartet that they would be receiving charges in the mail.

What’s next, ear-splitting bouts of Marco Polo in the public pool? Short-sheeting beds at camp? Shaving cream in a sleeping kid’s hand? Oh, the humanity. Fasten your seat belts. It’s gonna be a long hot summer in the Keystone State.

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90 COMMENTS

  2. What, did they not think someone would write down the license plate number? These people sound like a bunch of idiots.

    • So, were you grown in a lab or did you just have to spend all of your free time indoors practicing the violin instead of outdoors having fun with normal human children? What kind of idiot writes down the license plate of a drive-by squirting? Frivolous twits. If this is what passes for crime in PA, they need to lay off every single cop in the whole state.

  3. I can’t tell if you’re condoning randomly squirting people (by making the people who are upset by it look stupid) or making fun of the way it was reported. If it’s the former, then I’m shocked. I’d be beyond pissed if a group of kids squirted me while I was out and about for reasons I shouldn’t have to list.

    • IT WAS WATER, not toxic waste. WATER.

      Yes, it may have been annoying to get sprayed from a squirt gun while standing on a corner. Maybe their clothes, skin and/or hair got wet, but no harm was done. Be a little grumpy for awhile, then GET OVER IT. Filing criminal charges is a gross over-reaction.

      Agreeing with John below, the people who called the police are wussies and cry-babies; and the police who wrote up the charges are incompetent and should be fired. The judge should charge all of them with harrassment and malicious prosecution.

      • Say you were out and about, minding your own business, and a group of young troublemakers pull up next to you and hose you down with supersoakers. Suppose that your cellphone becomes waterlogged, and is effectively ruined.

        How would you feel about it then?

        While I agree that criminal charges seem excessive in this case, mandatory financial restitution for any and all actual damages is not.

        • “mandatory financial restitution ”

          So, you want the perps to provide free towels? What’s the emotional cost of dampness these days?

        • I’d be momentarily miffed, but later I’d laugh my butt off. Who do you have arrested when it rains on you for crying out loud?

        • If they damaged your cellphone, you could legidimately take them to small claims court for the cost of a new cellphone. Otherwise your example is pretty silly. I wouldn’t even bother with the cellphone, since the time I would have to take to get any judgement would outweigh what it was worth.

    • Do you also get beyond pissed if it starts to rain while you’re out and about? Do you then press charges against nature for the insult of being rained upon?

      • You are actually not allowed to drive by people and spray them with water. I would call the cops too.

        • You were probably also the little punk in school who’d provoke someone and then when they merely acted like they might hit you for being a dick, go running to the teacher / principal crying. The country would be a much better place without sniveling cowards like the people in this article.

        • I was going to reply to loser Dave, I mean low budget dave, but Totneglocke pretty well said everything I wanted to say.

        • DeadGlock: So, someone complains about assault being laughed at, and the response is “you probably provoked fights in school and ran away like a coward” – ie, namecalling (and “loser” tom below, as well).

          Shall I counter with “you’re probably the asshole bullies who thought “it was just good fun” while making someone’s life miserable”?

          How about we stop pretending we can read other people’s minds and histories, if that accusation is unpleasant? Because fair’s fair, and if you get to do that to Dave, I get to do it to you.

          And at least consider that everything has two sides, and one side’s “harmless squirting” is at least possibly another’s “assault and humiliating attack”?

          Being doused by a random stranger, unexpectedly, is not “fun”, and further it’s not “cowardly” to stand up against it.

          (Now, engaging in a water-fight willingly is very good fun, but that’s the difference between boxing and attempted murder, isn’t it?

          See JohnnyBob’s much more sensible reply below for why “it’s just water” isn’t an excuse for random assaults.)

  5. I was walking back from Disney Land with my family and got hit with a paint ball gun twice in the leg. It pissed me off to no end, and while yeah I could press charges chance of finding them since I didn’t get a license plate were slim. I was busy covering my kids up.

    Pool water though???? I am not saying that getting hit with anything wouldn’t upset me, but there has to be a limit. A stern talking to yes, having to mow their lawns for a month ok too. Really we have gone from dealing with things as fellow towns people to hiding behind officers and suing the pants off each other for emotional distress.

    • This is exactly what I was thinking. Instead of parents getting together to hash things out, it’s straight to court! Same thing in schools, pressing charges because your child got beat up. I’m sure it’ll get thrown out in a rational world. Oh well.

      • So, you’re singing the praises of a vendetta society?

        And you consider yourself rational, too.

        Remarkable.

      • The whole problem IS our litigious society. While not sure if I would have involved the police (I wasn’t there) I do know I wouldn’t have gone to the parents of these troublemakers. The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree and it’s very likely these days that the parents will back the kids and blame the victim (a la Trayvon). And frankly this is what also forces cops into unreasonable reaction – there is (or used to be) a concept of “police descretion” but now legal actions have put the cops in a straight jacket and they have to be very strict on how they handle the law.

        And for the record, while everyone is blaming the victim… those a-hole kids need an ash whipping more than anything. I detest jerks who ignore the peace and property of others for a good laugh. Yeah, it’s kids being kids but these kids become adults and if nobody tells them it’s not civil to behave this way they’ll continue to be jerks.

    • Who’s suing over emotional distress? The targets – er, victims – are complaining about an assault.

    • It actually makes some sense to get upset about a paintball gun, since it would probably premanently stain your clothes, and cause real financial loss, but a water pistol, even a super soaker. Unless it was colored water that stained and ruined clothes, it is pretty silly to get upset. Maybe call their parents and complain to them, but calling the cops, really lame.

  6. I went to the town beach today to get a little sun, when someone splashed me with lake water. Lake water! That stuff has fish pee-pee in it! So now I’m suing him, his family and the town. I haven’t sworn out a criminal complaint yet, because the offender is only five. Maybe I’ll wait. Does anybody know the statute of limitations on splashing in the first degree?

    • LMAO Ralph you have cause me to spew more coffee on my keyboard than I care to admit..
      Spoken like a true lawyer lol

      • What’s this obsession you have with driving? Splashing people with water WHILE DRIVING is apparently a very big deal to you.

        • It’s relevant. A splash from a lake is a normal hazard of being by a body of water – unless, that is, someone did it quite deliberately.

          Deliberately soaking someone who isn’t a voluntary participant in your little game is at best extraordinarily rude, and at worst plain assault.

          Driving by and squirting them precisely points out that there’s no accident factor here, that the kids were deliberately going around squirting strangers and driving off.

          (Which, by the way, should be taken contra above-thread complaints of “cowardice” by those offended by this, as evidence that the squirters are the cowards, who aren’t playing a game of “water wars” with willing participants who can play back, but getting their jollies in a an utterly craven way and running off before the consequence find them.)

  7. While working on DIA in ’93-’94 Sooper Soakers became the rage. As thousands of guys left work on hot summer afternoons in a two lane stream from the construction parking lots, drive-by Sooper Soaking became the game to play. Our answer was not to call the cops or whine. We escalated and retaliated; the True, All-American Way. Go bigger, go bolder, surprise attack with over-whelming firepower or waterpower as it were. If we lose our sense of humor guys, we’re cooked and many in this country seem to have lost theirs.

    • I can remember arching water balloons from the roof of a fraternity house onto people driving by in convertibles in 1956. With practice, you can drop one of those babies very accurately. That was the beginning of the end of the country, I’m sure.

  9. Sense of humor is one thing, but consider how you would respond if a car came by and lo and behold a barrel is now pointed at you, especially considering the fact that you don’t know the occupants of the vehicle. I have the right to be out in public without having to put up with this degree of contact from strangers. As far as I understand the scene, this wasn’t at a pool party. There was no consent to be touched, either implied or stated. I maintain a hands-off policy about people I don’t know, and I expect the same in return.

    • a barrel is now pointed at you

      A barrel? The only bullet that anyone could fire from a barrel that narrow would be one of those fabled .9mms.

      • Not all toys look obviously fake. Some real guns are globbed up with accessories and bling. But the point remains that a person has the right to walk down the street without being sprayed at random.

        I put this into the same category as clerks who spray perfume at me in stores or knuckleheads who carry on cell phone conversations in a movie theater. There’s too much thoughtless familiarity in public, but, of course, whenever people like the kids in the car gets a dose of the same medicine, they also get offended.

        • I’m sure that Ms. Sloan-Mallory dutifully crosses the street to the other side when she comes upon anyone out watering their yard, in case this “neighborhood terrorist” decides to turn his hose upon her.

    • I have the right to be out in public without having to put up with this degree of contact from strangers. As far as I understand the scene, this wasn’t at a pool party. There was no consent to be touched, either implied or stated.

      Fucking libertarians.

      • Dont blame libertarians for this idiot. Most of us have much more perspective than that. And if we were actually that upset, we would definitely not call in the gov, we would find the kids parents and complain to them perosnally.

    • The “barrell” is pretty obviously a red plastic toy gun. They dont make very many AK-47’s with plastic red gunstocks and barrrells. You guys are getting more lame by the second.

  10. you don’t get the true horror those people felt! they were shot with toilet water! Now, if the squirt gun had been filled with Brwando, that would be different, everyone would be happy, I mean, it’s got electrolytes!

  11. If someone came up to you and spat in your face how are you going to respond? ‘Oh’, just a little saliva it’s really nothing to get upset about’ or are you going to spit, shove, or slap that person back?

    • Aharon, spit is a bodily fluid which often transmits germs and diseases. That is the reason why if you spit on a police officer…you get charged with assault. If you are infected with HIV or other diseases it becomes aggravated assault. Say that officer eventually dies because of this…now you would be looking at homicide. You sir are comparing apples to oranges!!! Heck when I was young we did these pranks all the time…usually not to adults because they were out of play, per say. Kids and teenagers will be kids and teenagers. Dogs will bark and life will go on… I promise.

      • k92057, change the spit then to a cup of water in your face by a complete stranger or some apple juice thrown on your shirt or jeans. If people are not part of some agreed ‘play’ they have every right to be ticked off and press charges if they choose. BTW, it was and still is to a strong degree common practice for a man to physically retaliate against some stranger who verbally disrespects a man’s wife or daughters. Anyways, any punishment ie a fine will if found guilty probably be light.

        • This is the kind of thing people settle among themselves . This is an abuse of the legal system. People like these should be made to pay court costs and relieve the tax payer of the burden of their stupidity.

        • Aharon It was POOL WATER. Leave the spit and the apple juice out of it. You seem the type if this happened to you, you would get a fire hose and not understand the difference.

  12. The pictured Super Soaker, whose exact model number escapes me at the moment, is an outstanding piece of Tactical Rehydration Ordnance. My daughter has used hers to commit felonious soaking on many of our friends and neighbors, most of whom responded with a bucket of water over said daughters head. And all, as they say, was made right with the world.

  13. Anyone who didn’t do stuff like that as a kid must have had a boring childhood… and I sure as hell never got charged with anything resulting from goofing off as a kid.

    So some kids squirted some other kids with a water gun… everyone involved needs to lighten up.

  14. David Letterman sprays folks on the sidewalk outside of his studio with what appears to be a water cannon or a fire hose. I’m surprised an ESU SWAT Team hasn’t been dispatched.
    And yes. The pussification of America.

  15. Lovely. We now get to tack on a criminal record that will stay with them for life. Yes, I’m aware of sealed records and expunging them, but once data are created, they are never destroyed. It’s simply too valuable and extremely cheap to store.

    And for what? Being guilty of childish action in the third degree?

  16. Ha ha, yeah it’s funny to drive down the street and blast unsuspecting people with a water cannon. If they did it to me or my kids there would be hell to pay.

  17. At least New Castle has it better than Chicago… There the “youths” seem to use real guns with lethal, not damp results.
    Perhaps New Castle teens will consider this since dead people do not press charges.
    Yes, this is over the top. Perhaps nanny/scold Bloomberg can send one of his hired SWAT teams to determine if PA laws will let these deadly devices cross state lines.

    • New Castle will immediately implement “stop and frisk” to combat this insidious crime-wave.

  18. I remember, a thousand winters ago, I was driving to a f(r)iend’s house. A kid, about six years old, threw a snowball and pasted me in the middle of the windshield. I slammed on the brakes and reversed to where the kid stood, frozen in fear.

    “Did you throw that snowball?”

    “Yyyyyyes …”

    “Good shot!” and I drove off.

    This whole thing is much ado about nothing. But people say I’m nasty.

  19. You know, I can stand a harmless prank. But I’ve had clothes ruined by over-chlorinated pool water by my own doing. Big bleach splotches. Sux when it’s yer new jeans or yer fav concert tee. Next time, just use good ol’ tap water from the garden hose. If ya can drink it, it can’t be all bad for ya. YMMV

  20. First….the culprits were not kids. They were all over the age of 18 with one as old as 24. Second, where the hell did you people lose the basic fact…”your rights end where the other guys nose begins”. You don’t have the right to drive down a street and spray kids with water or whatever it is in the gun. If they had actually been kids, I would have cut them some slack, but when you are an adult and you do this type of stuff, then yes I would press charges.

    • You’re right, Budahmon. YOu don’t have the right to drive down a street and spray people with water. They should not have done it. Harumph. Similarly, I should not have thrown smoke bombs into the gym during girls basketball practice. I should not have set off firecrackers in my neighbor’s trash can. I should not have TPd the assistant football coach’s house. We should not have launched rotten oranges at the frat boys and their dates arriving back at the dorm late that night. We shouldn’t have wrapped the spotlight in red cellophane and used it to pull over 22 cars in one night (I’m particularly proud of that one).

      I expected to get in trouble when I was caught– which was often enough — and the punishments were appropriate. However, spraying an over-sensitive brat with water does not deserve criminal charges. It was a harmless prank.

  21. You can have my Super Soaker when you’ve pried it out of my cold, wet, pruny fingers!

    WOLVERINES!

  24. Assaulting people on the street with anything, including water, is illegal in most jurisdictions in America. It is considered some form of assault – as indeed it is. Unfortunately many don’t realize that doing things like they’re done in the movies – throwing drinks in peoples’ faces and such larks – can carry legal consequences. Nevertheless it’s so. Don’t assault people with rocks, sticks, water, etc. Should be a simple concept, no? The chlorine in this case doesn’t seem to be legally significant, although fads for shooting other water additives, such as bleach, have caused “super soakers” to be banned in some cities.

    So, no need to poop in your panties, folks. From the report it looks like this is being treated as some variant of assault, but NOT as a firearms offense. I don’t see any problem there. Some kids acted like jerks, and maybe they’ll be treated like jerks. Nyet problema.

  25. Kids are driving cars? Either thats illegal, or they aren’t kids in any commonsense definition.
    They squirted water at people- that is an assault. Alright a minor one, but still an assault. After all few would have defended them had they thrown verbal abuse, which would have done no physical harm.
    Their parent threw the police off the property- that doesn’t inspire me to believe they would have done anything to discipline their offspring.
    Its a pity the parents hadn’t instilled better manners in their offspring, and its also a pity they were unable or unwilling to offer any meaningful response, but given that response it seems sensible for the authorities to act now, rather than wait for something more serious to happen.

  26. If I was the dad of the kid that did the soaking, my boy would be mowing the victims parents yard for the entire summer. And the victims dad would have my permission to ride my kid like a rented mule until the job was done right every Saturday.

    Maybe that’s why I don’t have kids!?

    Just my two cents.

    • If you raised ’em like that, they probably wouldn’t have done it in the first place.

      Maybe you should have kids.

  27. I live in western PA, and I wonder – who is running the show in New Castle. It’s a small town, but they keep making the news. Remember when they took a newborn baby away from its mom becuase mom had eaten a poppyseed bagel and it showed up as a microscopic amount of opiates?

  29. The wussification of America is from the parents’ failure to take responsibility and do their job in exerting discipline. So the New Castle police have to deal with the situation. Then the Greco punk-daddy gets mad at the police, when his wussy parenting caused the whole problem.
     
    This type of behavior is the responsibility of (1) those liberals who don’t believe in discipline and (2) a subset of flakey conservatives, who can’t figure out the math here. The author Dan Zimmerman is presumably in one of these two groups.

  30. The sniveling cowards in the article are the 4 punks and their parents who failed to properly discipline. Because of their lazy refusal to do what’s right, the police get dragged in.

  31. If the parents of the punks weren’t such wusses about disciplining their kids, then the police wouldn’t get dragged in.

    • Maybe if the wusses who think that squirting is a crime could just refrain from calling the police, then this post would never have been written.

      • If there’s no intent to harm, it won’t be a crime – but it will be tortious battery, because it’s unwelcome and offensive contact.

        (With intent, it would be criminal battery, at least under common law. Not sure about PA statutes.

        Of course, it’s difficult for the squirtee to apprehend intent ahead of time, so it might well be common law assault.)

    • Quite so…they are in fact brutish ruffians who deserve their comeuppance! Oh how the west has declined since abandoning the old ways! Stocks and lashes for the lot of ’em!

  34. Uh, as I read this I get the distinct impression the Police (presumably after checking with prosecutors) were quite willing to leave it up to the parents to handle the matter, but the parents of the wet kid are insisting on pressing charges.

  37. My heavens, we cant have these lawless hoodlems shooting water pistols with impunity. They should also arrest kids shooting spitwads, obviously a felonious assault rap, and considering the biological hazard it could even be chemical warfare terrorism. And how about intentional farting, obviously chemical warfare terrorism. And how about dunking pigtails in ink, obviously another felony. And then the worst of all, verbally assaulting somebody with hate speech when they shout na na bo bo your mother wears army shoes.

    Thank heavens we have our gallent police and city fathers to protect us against these horrible terrorists.

  38. Years ago I was working a security detail in a high crime residential subdivision. A car rolled up to us one one night in a poorly lit area and a barrel came out the window. Just a few months prior, one of our Officers was shot. We all were in the process of drawing when we were hit with water. The kids in that car came very close to dying that night. Joke all you want, shooting people with a water gun is a BAD idea.

  39. The Smoking Gun is reporting that the four people in the car are being charged with misdemeanor disorderly conduct and harassment. The parents of one of the miscreants, who flipped out and ordered the cops off their property when they showed up to talk to the perpetrators, are facing disorderly conduct and disorderly house (WTF is disorderly house?) charges.

  40. It’s like Dumbledore said in the fifth harry potter book.

    “And you certainly seem to be making many changes, Cornelius. Why, in the few short weeks since I was asked to leave the Wizengamot, it has already become the practice to hold a full criminal trial to deal with a simple matter of underage magic!”
    Order of the phoenix – JK Rowling

    It seems irrelevant to post the harry potter quote in there but it seems like this is what the government and the tight wads are getting to do. The government is now doing having people get prosecuted in full criminal court like a murderer and rapist for “Simple matter of underage magic” ie shooting people with a water gun.

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