As you can see in the video, the 14th and U Streets NW snowball fight was some good-natured wintery mayhem. So why did Metropolitan Police Department officers feel the need to bust it up — and to draw a gun when they did?

Early on, MPD officers tolerated the chaos. Around 150 snowballers lined up on the east and west sides of 14th Street NW just north of U Street, idling politely as passing cars sludged through the intersection before rushing out to meet one another on the icy field of combat. A few activist-types carried riot shields featuring the anarchy symbol and unfurled a giant banner reading “No War but Snow War.” One snowballer carried an IKEA bag full of snowballs, as good a visual metaphor for a snowball fight at that intersection as you could hope to find. Good times.

The crowds attacked each other without mercy, but each side duly recognized the rules of war. When cars stalled in the snow, snow warriors put down their arms and gathered to help push the vehicles free. Between 2 p.m. and 3 p.m., a number of cops pulled up to or through the intersection, but none lingered or interfered with the snowball fight. One cop car got stuck in the muck while trying to make a U-turn at the intersection, and the crowd cheered when a half-dozen snow warriors pushed the squad car free.

At around 3 p.m., friends and I decided we’d seen enough flurry-fueled fury for the day. Before we could turn off the northeast corner of 14th Street and U Street, people around us began shouting “Hummer!” A red Hummer was stopped at that intersection, facing west. A plainsclothed figure was walking around it, speaking into a walkie-talkie. My first thought was that he was stalled; my second that he was a WMATA official. The crowd buzzed about there being some official stuck in a Hummer. While most snowballers up 14th Street continued to direct their attacks at one another, some people at the intersection began throwing snowballs at him and his vehicle.