The D.C. sandwich guy™ has been found not guilty of whatever crime they decided to charge him with this time. He’d previously beat a grand jury on a felony charge, so the U.S. Attorney for D.C., in her infinite wisdom, decided to charge him with a misdemeanor. For throwing a sandwich at a cop.
It’s laughable. Why? Because if somebody threw a sandwich at me, and I called the cops on them to charge with felony assault, or even some misdemeanor, the cops would laugh at me. “Why are you wasting our time?” they would ask. And, honestly, despite cops being in the best of times the most useless people on the planet, they would be right to laugh at me. Throwing a sandwich isn’t going to hurt anybody—it is an action that, at worst, results in merely a mess. Perhaps smelling of mustard and onions (great topping choices, tbh). Laundry detergent is pretty good these days; I bet it wouldn’t even stain.
So, here is where I define, universally, what is a crime (even in a vaguely Kantian universal sense): If it happened to me, and the cops would laugh at me for reporting it, it is not a crime.
However, and I refuse to take this as a direct objection to my argument (because I did not make this argument), but just because cops do take it seriously doesn’t necessarily make it is crime. Only the opposite. I am okay with cops being part of what defines not a crime; I am not okay with them defining what is a crime. It’s a pretty sharp delineation.
Anyways, great job, Jeanine, as expected.
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