Arlington Officer Offers Teen Alternative to Drug Charge: Push-ups

An Arlington police officer who spotted a teen who he believed was smoking marijuana outside a movie theater gave him a choice: push-ups or a spot on his record. The officer, identified by KDFW-TV (Channel 4) as Eric Ball, was working an off-duty security job at Tinseltown Cinemark when he was tipped off to the teen's behavior.He asked the teen to go over to him and saw him drop something in his hand. "You out here in front of the door smoking weed. What are you thinking? That was dumb," Ball told KDFW. "So you're going to go to jail for something dumb today."Ball wanted to turn the incident into a teaching moment, so he asked the young man to choose between 200 push-ups or a possible misdemeanor citation and fines. He chose the latter and was doing the push-ups when Raiza Paredez started recording. She posted the video to Facebook where it has more than 100,000 views. Most of the comments are positive reactions to the officer's actions.   Continue reading...