An off-duty Texas police officer caught a teenager smoking weed in front of a movie theater. The cop decided to resolve the situation in an equally off-duty, macho, paternalistic way that only police officers can get away with these days.
He told the boy to do 200 pushups, right then and there, or hed book him for weed possession. The teen, of course, did the pushups.
Good thing the young man was in good shape. Not every teenager could pull off that many pushups on demand and on the sidewalk.
According to an ABC affiliate, someone ratted the teen toker out. So the police officer apparently saw it as his civic duty to get involved.
When the cop, identified as Eric Ball, saw the boy finishing off and tossing a cigarette, he recognized the telltale aroma and knew he had an incident on his hands.
Marijuana gives a distinct odor. He knew what the teen was up to, said Arlington Police Lieutenant Chris Cook, who clearly has a flair for the obvious.
Cook said the teen responded respectfully and recognized that hed made a mistake.
Yes, young man, it is a mistake to smoke weed in front of a crowded movie theater in Texas, which has some of the harshest marijuana laws in the country.
Lets not forget that some cops in Texas are prone to warrantless roadside body cavity searches if they think they smell something skunky during a traffic stop.
He could have very well arrested this teen, but instead he tried ...
