The Manhattan District Attorney’s Office declined to charge one of the hooligans accused of pelting snowballs at NYPD cops during the wild Washington Square Park melee with assault on a police officer during a court hearing Thursday.
Gusmane Coulibaly, 27, was originally charged with assault on a police officer, obstruction of governmental administration and disorderly conduct for his alleged involvement in a snowball free-for-all in Washington Square Park.
But the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office declined to pursue the cop assault charge during his arraignment Thursday evening.
The other charges were also downgraded to harassment and obstruction of governmental administration as a second-degree violation and misdemeanor, respectively, according to a criminal complaint.
Patrick Hendry, the president of the Police Benevolent Association, told reporters that the purported “playful snowball fight” was “an attack on the uniform these police officers wear every day.”
“This was a grown adult that was here. Our police officers went to this location, on the rooftop, for a disorderly group, came down, and they were surrounded by hundreds of individuals who then attacked all police officers,” Hendry said.
Hendry claimed that Coulibaly and the three suspects still at large knowingly packed the snow with ice and rocks before launching it at cops — and balked at the “downplayed” charges.
“So why wasn’t assault charged? Why was harassment charged? Why do they feel that that didn’t cause an injury to a police officer, which he clearly, clearly, has an injury below his eye?” Hendry said.
One victimized officer, only identified as “PO Johnson,” suffered redness, tenderness and pain to the left side of his face near his eye, but it was difficult to prove “that the injury was obtained directly from the defendant,” Manhattan Assistant District Attorney Victoria Notaro said in court.
Hendry said that Johnson is out on sick leave and “on the mend.”
Coulibaly didn’t address the court during his arraignment, but his private attorney, George Vomvolakis, accused the NYPD of taking their vitriol for Mayor Zohran Mamdani out on the wannabe influencer.
Vomvolakis appeared to lean into the narrative Mamdani painted in the immediate aftermath of the fight, which hizzoner contended was “kids doing snowballs.” In the same vein, Vomvolakis repeatedly claimed that Coulibaly is 22 years old — when he’s actually 27.
Despite Vomvolakis’s attempts to reframe the case as a “glorified summons,” claiming that Coulibaly “had no idea what the intent was” when he allegedly lobbed the snowball, Judge Michelle Weber argued that his involvement “showed a complete lack of judgment.”
Coulibaly was granted supervised release. He is due to appear in court on April 9 for the snowball charges, and separately on March 15 for an alleged straphanger shakedown.