After a nearly three year absence from the pages of National Zero, Montgomery County, Maryland Fire Department press officer Pete Piringer makes his return in another ridiculous story, this one from within his own ranks: A judge last week acquitted Captain Christopher Reilly of malicious destruction of property and disorderly conduct and also tossed the same charges against Firefighter Alan Barnes for their July 17th anti-baseball hate crime against an adjacent diamond, NBC4 reports.
Basically the firemen stationed there got sick of baseballs flying over the fence and inflicting damage on both the company’s equipment and their personal vehicles. Rather than using their axes to enact their revenge, the firemen decided to employ less-lethal methods at their disposal: Turning the firehoses on and just flooding the shit out of the field during a minor league team’s game.
“With the criminal case resolved, our internal administrative process will move forward,” Piringer said in a statement. “Duty status remains unchanged, non public contact, pending that review,” he added, which appears to mean that Barnes and Reilly have been ordered to stay away from the Takoma Thunderbolts. Them two had faced up to three years in prison for the damges they inflicted.